Transfigured Hearts 9: Recurring Problem
by MrsTater
Summary: When prejudice, a communication breakdown, a separation, and the Daily Prophet frazzle nerves and make tempers flare, Remus and Tonks admit the B-word into their relationship vocabulary: break-up. Sirius' personal mission is to make them take it back...
1. Part One

_Sequel to** Adorare **and **Stepping Out**, this is yet another Very Heavily Revised installment of the** Transfigured Hearts **series, including a completely new first chapter and a much higher R rating. I felt that at this juncture it was crucial to delve more into Remus' work for the Order, his lycanthropy, and how it affects his self-image, as well as to establish that he and Tonks just don't always communicate on the same wave length. Hopefully together with **Stepping Out** this new version of **Recurring Problem** will work better in the overall story arc than it did before, along with a lovers' quarrel that doesn't come quite so out of the blue!_

_As always, many thanks to my incomparable beta reader and very dear friend **Godricgal**, who I think knows my stories far better than I know them myself!_

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**Part One**

Number twelve, Grimmauld Place lived up to its grim old name as the peeling black front door groaned on its hinges and Remus stepped through into the dark, damp-smelling hall.

It was like walking into a tomb, he thought, leaning back to nudge the door shut behind him with his shoulder.

A draft swept through from another part of the sepulchral house; he clutched his suitcase in both hands, heedless of the fact that so tight a grip might be the undoing of the handle which had been threatening to fall off, feeling every inch the schoolboy suffering a bad case of the heebie-jeebies as the air ruffled the curtains of Mrs. Black's muttering portrait, carrying whispers of the ghosts of those they'd fought against fifteen years ago, who might well be the end of them this time around. Hardly the comforting homecoming Remus longed for at the end of a research assignment that not only had stretched from the intended week to ten days, but also dredged up his own demons.

Not to mention the fear that in _this_ war, they would not remain his alone to battle.

In the months since he'd sold his family's home in Exmoor, Remus had largely managed not to miss it -- or at least to squelch the feeling. Now, in desperate need of rest, and peace, and warmth, he could not ignore the deep stab of longing for the little turret bedroom of his boyhood; how he wanted a mug of his mum's special recipe hot chocolate to sip in bed and then to be lulled to sleep on the promise signified by the steady rumble of his parents' voices downstairs, that he belonged there, and was loved.

"Oi!" bellowed a voice, slightly muffled as it came from the end of the long front hall and down the narrow staircase leading to the basement kitchen below. "That you, Moony?"

Not at all a soothing voice like the remembered ones of his parents, but it was enough to make Remus stand up straighter, the weight on his shoulders lightened by a sense of welcome in this otherwise oppressively depressive atmosphere.

"Yes, Padfoot. It's me."

The thump of his bag as he dropped it at the foot of the wide staircase with its ornate serpentine railing, which led up to the main living floors of the house, drowned out most of Sirius' reply. Remus did catch something about a "sympathetic sod" and a "giddy wench," and he hazarded to guess that Dedalus Diggle and Hestia Jones had been 'round to entertain Sirius this week.

A little more of Remus' gloom slipped away, or else was Transfigured into compassion. For Sirius, the past ten days here had likely been more tortuous than the ones Remus had passed on the road. At least_ he_ had an end and a change to look forward to; Sirius' confinement continued indeterminately. The thought worked to Summon energy from a resource he hadn't realised before now he possessed. Remus strode down the corridor, something like a spring coming into his step.

"Did you make me that sandwich I sent my Patronus to ask you for?" he called out, descending the kitchen stairs.

"You know this is exactly why I never allowed myself to form a romantic attachment to you."

Sirius grinned up from where he was sat with his bare feet on the table, surrounded by a cold roast, a loaf of bread, several bags of crisps, a jar of horseradish sauce, and a platter of thick roast beef sandwiches. There were no plates, but there was an inordinate amount of cutlery for sandwich-making. If he hadn't been starving, Remus might have said something about the knives, or at least given them a second thought, but as it was his mouth watered for roast beef with just a touch of horseradish, and he began taking the steps two at a time, the sooner to reach the sandwiches. Somehow, his fixation on the food didn't distract him from Sirius' deepening smirk.

"I knew you'd be the type of husband who'd call about bloody sandwiches on his way home from work without so much as a _Wotcher, darling, and how was your day? I missed you awfully. Give us a kiss!_"

Remus' mouth was too full of roast beef to reply, but Sirius didn't seem to expect one, only laughed at Remus groaning as the juicy sandwich delighted his taste buds, stuffed his own mouth with a handful of sour cream and onion crisps, and said, "Giff oo lil ti, mahe."

Remus swallowed his sandwich, and then told Sirius to do the same.

Sirius did, and bared his strong yellow teeth, coated with crisp crumbs, in a grin. "Give you a little tip, mate."

"I did understand you. But you know werewolves haven't cultivated a taste for seafood. "

Rolling his eyes at the pun, Sirius said, "If you're planning to marry Tonks, you'll want to learn the error of that way."

"If I married Tonks..." Remus paused to finish off his sandwich. "...I wouldn't be the one with a job to come home hungry from, would I?"

Sirius swung his feet down to the floor and leant forward in his chair, eagerly, Remus thought, only to reach for a sandwich. "Thought about it, have you?"

Now it was Remus doing the eye-rolling as he pulled out the chair opposite Sirius, shaking off the hairy big feet that had found their way onto it.

"If I married _anybody_," said Remus, sitting, "I would be the partner with nothing to do but stay at home and make sandwiches. And anyway, I'd always been under the impression that the reason you never formed a romantic attachment to me was that..." He leant low over the table and said, conspiratorially, "_...you're not gay._"

"That's me: Sirius A. Black, straight as a centaur's arrow and refuses to be loved for his sandwiches."

"But I do love you for these sandwiches. Very much."

Remus devoured a second one while Sirius watched, his own forgotten.

"Didn't you eat at all while you were away?"

The light of amusement faded from Sirius' eyes, darkening them to a stormy depth of colour that took Remus back more than twenty years, to an early morning in the hospital wing when all his mate's graceful arrogance and wicked charm had slipped away into the gentlest compassion Remus had ever seen etched on a human face. It had filled him with gratitude and brotherly affection, but at the same time made him loath to let on how truly bloody awful he felt; Sirius had enough to worry about with his mum sending Howlers every day at breakfast that declared to the entire school what a shame he was to her flesh, how he besmirched her fathers by being Sorted into Gryffindor House and behaving in the same low manner as the Lupin and Pettigrew brats -- not to mention the Potter boy who ought to have known better considering _his_ bloodline.

Chewing slowly, Remus pondered how to respond to Sirius now. Part of him wanted very much to tell him everything, as there was no doubt that in his old friend he would find a sympathetic ear. But sympathy would come at a high price; this mission would worry Sirius and, trapped as he was here, worry could only add more frustration to his load at not being able to go out and do something for the Order.

Remus swallowed his sandwich, which settled into his stomach as a heavy weight. His throat felt very dry as he said with a shrug, "You remember how these travelling missions are."

There was a flash of longing in the grey eyes, and Remus tensed, cursing himself for drawing attention to the fact that once upon a time, Sirius had been sent out on Order missions, too. But he sensed, as Sirius again stuck his hand into the bag of crisps, watching Remus all the time, that his thoughts were mainly directed outward.

"Obscure villages?" he said. "With inns that make the Hog's Head look like the Ritz?"

"Precisely."

Remus didn't mention the fact that in addition to the food, not a single inn had boasted a bed that didn't make the one night he'd spent at Aberforth's establishment with a goat's horns protruding through the mattress seem like sleeping on fairy floss in comparison.

Not that a feather mattress enchanted with sleeping spells would've helped him sleep at the end of each of those ten, long, draining days.

"Any Firewhisky?" Remus glanced at the spread on the table between them, his spirits having sunk again. "I haven't had a decent drink in days, either."

His insides twisted with guilt at complaining about the few people he'd met who'd been kind enough to offer him a cup of a vile herbal substance intended to pass as tea or a shot of even fouler home-brewed liquor.

"Sorry, mate," Sirius answered. "Neither've I. Molly wouldn't even buy me bloody Butterbeer. I got Dung to bring me over some booze, but it tasted like piss so I've unfortunately been sober the whole time you were away. Pumpkin juice, though!" He Summoned a bottle and two glasses from the cupboard. "What was that useful little spell you used to do for fermenting it?"

Remus looked at him for a moment, feeling a little wrong-footed at the interruption of his reverie. "_Fermentare pepon_?"

"Pepon, that's right. I couldn't remember."

Sirius tapped the side of the pumpkin juice bottle with his wand as he uttered the spell, then twisted off the cap and poured two tumblers full.

"To returning home." He started to drink, but paused with his glass to his lips to mutter, "If coming back to this hellhole counts."

"Believe me..." Remus shoved away the images that swirled to the front of his mind of the gatehouse in Exmoor by clinking his glass to Sirius'. "It does."

They threw back their pumpkin wine, and Sirius sputtered and coughed.

"This tasted a hell of a lot better when we were kids."

Remus shoved a handful of salt and vinegar crisps into his mouth to cover the vile pumpkiny taste, which was far worse than anything he'd been served during his travels.

"The excitement of doing something we shouldn't lent a sweetness to the flavour, I think," he said.

"We're doing something we shouldn't now, aren't we, drinking behind Molly's back?"

"It's more potent when you've not learnt to hold Firewhisky."

"You're moody tonight, Moony." Sirius cocked his head to the side as he tilted his chair onto its back legs. "Obviously you've not spoken to the fair Nymphadora yet."

Remus had reached for a third sandwich, but his hand hovered over the platter, his heart also stopping. He looked down, his hair falling into his face.

No. He'd not spoken to Tonks. He'd tried, but...

Well, he'd been over it enough in his own mind. No need to rehash it again, with himself _or_ Sirius.

There was a faint scratching sound as Sirius rubbed his hand over his stubbly chin. "I should've thought you'd be there, not here, snogging and carrying on about how slowly the days went by without each other's googly eyes to gaze into. I didn't think she was down for guard duty tonight."

Remus' hand closed with a little too much force around the roast beef. Of course Sirius wouldn't see things his way. Of course he would want to discuss everything _ad nauseum. _Settling back into his chair, Remus took a bite and chewed slowly, measuring his response.

Finally, he said, "You never know what she might get tied up with at the Ministry."

"She did know you'd be back today, didn't she?"

Only someone who knew Sirius as well as Remus did would have detected the accusation that underpinned the otherwise innocuously spoken words. Bristling, and feeling a defensive reply at the tip of his tongue, Remus rose from his chair and went to the larder in search of something to drink. He couldn't believe Molly hadn't even bought _Butterbeer_, or that Sirius hadn't managed to cajole one of the Order to bring him a stash. He thought he'd hidden a few cans of his own personal supply of Pumpkin Pop right at the back before he went away.

"She's my girlfriend," he said, spying them and delving deep into the larder to retrieve two of the concealed cans. "Of course she knew."

"'Course she would."

"I owled her this morning to say that if my interview went according to plan, I would be here tonight."

"I see."

"I can't believe you'd even ask," said Remus, but he tossed one of the cans of Pumpkin Pop to Sirius, who, though still perched on his precariously tilted chair, caught it with a lazy outward flick of his hand.

"Don't you know by now there's nothing I wouldn't ask?" said Sirius.

"_Why_ would you ask?"

Chin lifted at the same haughty angle to his chair, Sirius gave Remus one of those level stares that had always turned Peter into a snivelling wreck.

"I don't know, Remus. Maybe because you didn't bother to owl her all week?"

The hiss of the can popping open covered Remus' sharp indrawn breath. How did Sirius know...? His stomach simmered like the carbonated contents of the can. There was only one way Sirius could know that. Nauseous (from three roast beef sandwiches, he told himself, unconvincingly), Remus raised the can to his lips, wishing, as the sickly-sweet pumpkin-flavoured fizzy drink flowed onto his tongue and into his churning stomach that it was a steadying lemon and lime instead.

Not that lemon and lime would have quelled the sort of nausea that did_ not_ stem from three roast beef sandwiches.

"As I said," Remus began, the words catching in his throat, "my travels were to obscure Muggle villages that lacked owl post offices. Nor did any of the magical people I met with until last night own owls."

Sirius opened his mouth, but Remus spoke again before he could. "I couldn't jolly well send her my Patronus, could I, when I didn't know where she might be at any given time?"

"Can't imagine a girl as keen as Tonks wouldn't send you off with her minute-by-minute timetable."

She actually had not done, which was another aspect of their parting that Remus had over-analysed all week. Most probably, she had been in too much pain from her sprained ankle to think of it. Whatever it was, it didn't bear further deliberation, or conversation, now.

"Aurors' schedules change," said Remus.

Sirius' chair dropped onto all four legs, but his gaze was unwavering. He folded his arms across his thin chest, and though his face was gaunt, the eyes sunken in deep sockets, boyhood had not been entirely eroded from his features. Remus recognised that his old mate was gearing up for a staring match, which would last until _he _caved and admitted that of course Sirius, the voice of romantic experience (even though _he'd_ never owned up to having had what could be considered a truly _serious_ relationship with a woman, was right, and that _his_ own feelings were illegitimate because he didn't act on reckless Gryffindor impulse. In the old days it mostly worked (and it was mostly to Sirius that Remus was indebted for the few dalliances he did have tucked under his belt).

But not today.

Remus returned the stare as he drank his Pumpkin Pop. Sirius didn't understand. He _couldn't_ understand; there was too much he didn't know.

Whether Sirius realised this, and decided to let it go till he'd wormed more information out of Remus, or simply decided that the love lives of werewolves were boring, Remus couldn't guess; but Sirius shrugged and shifted his attention back to the spread on the table.

"What people?" He bit into a sandwich. "Who were you interviewing? Recruiting mission?"

Remus' tense shoulders relaxed -- though only slightly, as the situation changed from willingly withholding information to having no choice but to do so.

In fact his mission had not been recruitment so much as reconnaissance. A report from Rubeus Hagrid that Voldemort's spies were preying on the giant population's disenfranchisement from Wizarding society in order to gain their support had prompted concern in Dumbledore that the werewolves of Great Britain might also be targeted as pawns in the Dark Lord's army. What had been supposed to be a week-long trip for Remus had stretched to ten days of gallivanting up and down the British Isles making contact with known werewolves or the families of known werewolves -- information the Order had obtained from Werewolf Registry files filched by Sturgis Podmore, who had worked in the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures before his arrest and sentence to six months in Azkaban. Remus' objective had been to gauge political unrest instigated by Umbridge's anti-werewolf legislation and to ascertain whether any of Voldemort's followers had come calling.

Having had a number of doors slammed in his face, Remus wasn't at all sure of his success. Then again, having a few vituperative epithets hurled at him, along with being blamed for the sorry state werewolves were in by meddling in Wizarding affairs, made it seem likely that_ someone_ had been talking to them, and it wasn't other werewolves, as they were a scattered all over in no semblance of a pack.

And yet _pack_ was the term that had fallen from the lips of a few who were willing to talk, and had put an ice in the pit of his belly which had yet to thaw.

"If I told you," said Remus lightly, for Sirius' benefit, though his current mood hung on him like a heavy winter cloak, "I'd have to Obliviate you."

Returning to his seat across from Sirius, Remus turned it round to sit backwards upon it, and, plonking his Pumpkin Pop can on the table, took another handful of salt and vinegar crisps.

"I'm sorry, Padfoot, but first I've got to give my report to Dumbledore." He swallowed, then gave a small smile. "You see? Tonks isn't the only person I haven't spoken to."

"Well then," said Sirius, "I'm honoured that you've spoken to me first. Especially as you've _not told me a bloody thing_."

"Don't do this."

"I'm not doing anything. Seems to be the thing around here."

"You know I'll tell you as soon as I can."

"Oh -- that's why you haven't told me what's wrong between you and Tonks, is it?"

Remus gave a grunt of exasperation. "Nothing's--"

"Hippogriff shit!"

Sirius brought his fist down -- on his bag of crisps, which had a rather less emphatic effect than Remus reckoned he would have liked.

Not dissuaded by the pitiful crunch, however, Sirius went on, "Eleven days ago you took her out and came back well before midnight looking like your ball gown had been turned into rags--"

"Rags would be just about right for me, wouldn't it?"

"--and now instead of rushing off to wherever the hell she is and snogging her senseless, you're making half-arsed attempts at contacting her. What's up? Did you row?"

Remus' eyes flicked downward, and he couldn't stop his fingers wandering up to tug at the back of his hair in a telltale gesture. "No. Not precisely."

"Then what the bloody hell happened on that Merlin-damned date?"

For a long time, Remus stared steadfastly at the dull, scratched back of the chair as the scenes that had replayed over and over in his mind for the past week and a half, as vividly as if he were viewing them in a Pensieve, once more came to life in his memory. Some made his pulse quicken, and his lips quirk in the faintest of smiles -- Tonks...dressed to the nines for him (sweet Merlin, those_boots_!)...declaring Romulus Lupin must have been a great wizard by virtue of being _his_ grandfather...making him feel comfortable enough for him to speak of things he'd never had anyone to talk to about...declaring, her small hands balling into fists, that his civil rights were as much a part of her mission in the Order as defeating Voldemort...himself, kissing her and calling her his pink champion...

If only the night had consisted solely of those moments.

But it had not, he thought, his shoulders rounding with his sigh.

The memories of those other parts made his face burn.

"Moony?" Sirius' voice was softer.

Remus looked up, but just as so many times on that date with Tonks he'd found himself unable to look her in the eye, he couldn't bring his gaze any higher than Sirius' chin. Catching a burnt orange hue in his peripherary, Remus shifted his gaze to the partly-drunk tumbler of fermented pumpkin juice in front of Sirius. Suddenly the homemade wine didn't seem so appalling. He tossed back the remainder of his own glass, and it gave him the courage to face Sirius.

"Rosmerta was surprised to see me in her pub, my presence very nearly cost her a few customers, and werewolves, it turns out, are not welcome at Zonko's. Of course," he went on, pouring himself another drink, "You'll remember that I always feared this would be the case if Mr. Zonko knew what I am."

"You've got to be bloody joking me," said Sirius in a low monotone, his fist crushing a handful of crisps. "Zonko--"

"Zonko didn't know I was with Tonks, welcomed her in, and told me the shop was closed."

Sirius' face had gone pale and deeply etched; he looked nearly as mad with fury as when they'd held Peter at wandpoint in the Shrieking Shack. "Tonks hexed that fucking bastard clown into fucking oblivion, I imagine?"

Remus' stomach twisted and did the same downward lurch it had that night, in dread that Tonks would do exactly that and, in an earnest desire to be his champion, unwittingly make his mortification all the worse. And yet when she had not done, the emotion within him had neither lifted nor loosened in relief.

"She looked rather like she was the one who'd been hexed," Remus said.

As Sirius looked now, mouth hanging open, his expression Confunded.

But only for a moment.

Shaking himself, Sirius said, "I don't believe that. You saw her at that Order meeting. She was ready to shove her gum up Snape's arise when he--"

"I think this struck rather a more sensitive emotional chord," Remus cut him off. "She was deeply upset -- there was no question."

"What did she say?"

It was with no small amount of relief that Remus watched Sirius' rage give way to a calmer, if rather agitated, curiosity. In the old days Sirius' temper had always exploded, but then that had been that, the end of his anger. Prolonged as Sirius' dark moods tended to be these days, Remus had feared that it was one more characteristic Azkaban had stolen from Padfoot.

Even so, Remus hesitated before satisfying his mate's interest. "Nothing."

"She had to have said something, you said there was no question--"

"She fell down the front step." Remus ached inwardly as he pronounced the words. "She sprained her ankle."

"I'd probably have fallen down the front step if I'd been there, and I don't have Tonks' balance issues. All the money we spent in there as kids...We were Zonko's best customers!"

"Her distress was plain."

The legs of Sirius' chair screeched as he scooted back from the table, and the old table groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. "Well then, what did _you_ say?"

"Me?"

"No, her other werewolf boyfriend who was kicked out of Zonko's."

"Not_kicked_, precisely--"

"Would it have been less humiliating if you had been?" Sirius cut him off, circling the table. "You had to have said something after that. I mean, when a girl's so upset for your sake that she sprains her ankle, I think everyone would agree it's your job to do the talking."

He paused at the head of the table, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for a response which Remus did not readily give. Gradually, as the silence prolonged, Sirius once more stared in what could only be disbelief, and rubbed his forehead as if he'd got a headache. Sirius didn't need to speak for Remus to feel like an inept youth (which Remus hated, because he defied anyone in his situation to have felt or acted or thought differently); but of course Sirius didn't stay silent.

"You didn't say _anything_? Why the hell not?"

"What the hell _could_ I have said?"

"Oh, I don't know!" Sirius flung his arms out. "Maybe something to make her _feel better_?"

"But I didn't _know_ how she felt, Padfoot, that's the thing. _She_ didn't say anything, either, and it's not like her."

Remus ran his hands over his unshaven face, then raked his fingers back through his hair, tugging at the roots to relieve the sudden pounding pressure in his temples.

"It's not at all like her," he repeated, more quietly. "Tonks always talks about _everything_, and up till that point we'd been particularly open..."

He sighed and stood. He turned the chair the right way around, but did not sit. He remained where he stood, gripping the back.

"I have to believe that if she were upset by _what_ happened, she would have spoken about it. But as she didn't..."

The sentence trailed away into a calm silence, the crackle of Sirius' impatience and irritation having dissipated from the musty air of the kitchen.

"As she didn't?" Sirius prompted, gently.

Remus looked up. "I can only conclude that she realised what it means to be with me, and decided she's had quite enough."

Though he'd been thinking it, fearing it all week, saying it aloud brought a sad reality of such weight that he could not stand under it. He fumbled onto his chair under Sirius' shrewd gaze.

"She was here every day," said Sirius.

Remus was startled, not so much by the news as that he wasn't getting one of his mate's scathing lectures.

"Asking if I'd heard from you," Sirius went on. "It was heartbreaking, those big dark eyes of hers bloodshot like she'd sat up all night waiting for your owl, shining with hope. Every time I told her no, those jaunty pink spikes drooped and went brown at the roots. I'm not joking," he stopped Remus from speaking when he opened his mouth. "That girl thinks you hung the moon."

"That certainly would be ironic, wouldn't it?"

"Don't."_ There_ was the familiar, superior edge in Sirius' voice.

"Don't try to see the humour in a hopelessly un-funny situation?" Remus said.

"Don't deflect with jokes just because you feel guilty."

"She didn't owl me, and she was in the perfect position to."

The immaturity in his own voice made Remus cringe and, as Sirius scoffed at him, he stepped back from the conversation to self-evaluate.

Sirius was right. Remus did feel guilty. He'd patted himself on the back for opening up to Tonks, but when he'd really been put to the test, he'd failed, miserably. Even if he wasn't quite convinced that Tonks hadn't been put off by seeing what a social outcast he really was, he knew he ought to have given her a chance to tell him so instead of putting her in the awkward position of having to ponder a way to let him down gently after he got back from a long and difficult assignment.

Of course, this way, with him having broken what was as good as a promise to write her, it would be within her rights to let him go un-gently, which might solve that problem, as well.

Getting up again, Remus said, "I'll write to her now."

But Sirius cast a spell that blocked off the staircase with an iron door that most definitely wasn't part of the original architecture of the townhouse. Another flick of his wand made a fire leap to life in the grate. A third prodded Remus toward the fireplace.

"You're way past owling, mate," Sirius said. "Only Flooing will do."

A magical shove had Remus dropping to his knees on the floor before the hearth. The tin of Floo Powder levitated down to him, opened, and before Remus could reach his own fingers into it, a pinch flew into the flames as Sirius bellowed Tonks' direction.

As if finding himself forcibly Flooing, and the spinning of his head through the Floo Network, weren't dizzying enough, Remus' thoughts bashed pell-mell through his head: what in Merlin's name was he going to say to Tonks? It seemed unlikely that '_Hello, I'm sorry I didn't try harder to contact you all week, but because I'm such a poor communicator in general, I was afraid you were going to break up with me, and I just couldn't take it while I was doing work for Dumbledore that only served to remind me of just how much better than me you could do' _would make their situation less awkward.

And was Sirius planning to stand there over his shoulder? If Tonks did, by some miracle, have a shred of attraction left for him, it would be destroyed by the revelation that after all his other communication blunders, he was only calling her now at wandpoint. Girls at school, and in his youth, might have found that sort of thing endearing, but Tonks knew he suffered from something much darker than boyish bashfulness.

Remus needn't have worried; his spinning head emerged in a cold fireplace in a dark, silent flat.

"Tonks?" he said, even though he was sure that if she were home now, she would be sitting right across from the fireplace on her squashy red sofa, waiting for him to Floo. "Dora? It's Remus."

In the greenish light of the flames, he could just make out Tonks' lounge. It was tidier than usual, free of the usual clutter of dirty dishes, Butterbeer bottles, Pumpkin Pop cans, and chocolate wrappers littering the coffee table, or a trail of dirty clothes and shoes trailing from the front door to the bedroom. The housekeeping, combined with that unique musty smell of an unlived-in house, told Remus that she hadn't been much at home during his absence.

But why not tonight, knowing that he planned to return to London? His Tonks, on getting last night's owl, would have found some way to be free tonight, and opened her arms to him when he opened the front door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

That was, if she had ever been _his_ Tonks at all.

He withdrew his head from the flames.

"She's not there," he said, sliding his fingers through his thick hair to flick the ash out as he cast a wary glance over his shoulder at Sirius, who he half-expected to push him back through the Floo into Tonks' flat.

But Sirius merely stuffed his hands deep into his trouser pockets and leant against the mantel. "Probably better to speak to her in person, anyway."

Remus was nodding, when Sirius added, "Pop in and surprise her at work with flowers or something daft for her desk. A bobbing head doll or something to make her laugh. Have they got Weird Sisters ones?"

With the exception of the very disturbing image that was planted in his mind of a great hairy punk rocker's head wobbling on a disproportionate grunge-clad body, even Remus couldn't deny that Sirius' suggestion sounded reasonable, an ideal boyfriend thing to do.

Assuming, of course, that Tonks still thought of him as such.

He didn't relish the idea of being kicked out of the Auror office if she didn't. The Aurors, he imagined, would not be as polite as Zonko.

"If you'd seen her this week, mate," said Sirius, clapping Remus' shoulder, a sympathetic look in his eye as if he'd read his thoughts, "you wouldn't worry about her reaction. Well--" He sniggered. "She might hex your sorry arse for being a sodding prat and not sending her a single love note -- but she'll be more than happy to let you make it up to her. _Accio _Cauldron Cake," he said abruptly, flicking his wand at the larder. He crammed the cake, whole, into his mouth, and didn't bother to swallow, or even chew, before continuing, "Aurvision wone ahv see afing lih i."

"Are you trying to say that the Auror Division won't have seen anything like Tonks' reaction to a surprise visit from me?"

Sirius nodded.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"Every lover needs a healthy dose of fear in him." Sirius Summoned another Cauldron Cake from the larder. "Want one?"

"Thank you, no." Remus stood. "Seeing it half-chewed in your mouth rather put me off the idea. Now, what do you say to a game of Exploding Snape?" He took their favourite customised deck from their schooldays out of a drawer. "And I think our Jokers ought to be modelled after one Yorick Zonko..."

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_**A/N: I so appreciate everyone who has read this update even though it's not a completely new R/T story. If you take a moment to let me know what you think of it, I'll give everyone dinner with Remus and/or Sirius, along with a plate full of your favorite sandwiches and potato chips. Homemade pumpkin wine is, of course, optional. ;)**_


	2. Part Two

**Part Two**

There might well have been, as Sirius suggested, a healthy amount of fear for a man to have in regard to the object of his affection's colleagues. What Remus felt now, contemplating the broken-down, faded red telephone box stood across the dingy, rubbish-strewn street from him, would not likely be described as healthy by anyone, least of all by Sirius.

To enter, or not to enter? That was the question Remus turned over and over in his mind as he stood there. One hand was shoved deep into his trouser pocket, fingering his watch, feeling comforted by the cool smoothness of the gold and drawing steadiness from its weight and unfaltering _tick, tick, tick_. His other hand alternately raked restlessly through the back of his hair which spilt over the collar of his overcoat or scuffed over the several days' growth of beard on his chin and cheeks.

He sighed.

Whatever Tonks claimed about liking a bit of scruff, he ought to have shaved this morning and popped over to the Burrow to ask Molly for a trim; at least then, despite his tatty clothes, he would have had a small chance of Tonks noticing that he'd made his best effort with his appearance for her.

Not to mention he'd look a tad less like the out-of-work werewolf the_ Daily Prophet_ had been so kind as to remind the Wizarding community he was today.

Which was why he was stood across the street from the Ministry of Magic, hemming and hawing over whether to pay Tonks a surprise visit at her desk, instead of going inside and getting a visitor's pass to the Auror Division, as he had solemnly sworn to Sirius he would do.

But he'd made that vow to Sirius last night, before there was a newspaper article proclaiming Dolores Umbridge the new Hogwarts High Inquisitor and citing "Remus Lupin, werewolf" as an example of one of Albus Dumbledore's most "eccentric decisions" as Headmaster.

It wasn't that Remus saw himself as a central victim of this new point in the Dumbledore smear campaign. But surely if Sirius had been awake to see the paper (they'd stayed up well past four in the morning playing Exploding Snape and drinking that Merlin-awful pumpkin wine, and if Remus had not had to meet Dumbledore this morning at the Hog's Head, he'd be having a lie-in, himself), he would've understood Remus' reluctance, maybe even agreed that today might not be optimal for dropping in on his girlfriend at work for the first time.

Even if Sirius was right and Tonks _did_ still want to continue their relationship, this new reminder of Remus' status as a social outcast might very well be a straw to break the Hippogriff's back. She might want to keep things discreet.

Perhaps it was for the best that they did, regardless.

As the search for Sirius prolonged, dissatisfaction with the Auror Division could prompt editorials such as that which had appeared today. Head of Aurors Rufus Scrimgeour's recruitments might be called into question. If Tonks' good name -- for such it was, however much she hated her Christian name -- was tarnished by a romantic link with _werewolf Remus Lupin_...

Remus' nausea had nothing to do with lack of sleep and too much fermented pumpkin juice.

Which brought him back to the other question:

_Did_ Tonks want to be romantically linked to him?

He still had not received any response to yesterday's owl. He knew what her schedule was like, but in two months he'd never waited half so long for a reply from her. All _could not_ be well between them--

His view of the telephone box had become suddenly obscured.

Not by a passerby, or a Muggle car, or one of their red double-decker buses.

By a pair of hands pressing over his eyes.

A pair of warm hands.

Very warm. And small. A little callused, but washed with the light, fresh scent of orange blossoms, and distinctly feminine.

As was the body that pressed against him from behind.

And then a soft, warm cheek brushed his neck just above his collar, and soft, warm lips touched his earlobe as gentle breath, though also warm, made gooseflesh prickle up all over him and the tiny hairs on his neck rise.

"Guess who."

The voice was unmistakable, but nonetheless it made Remus' insides imitate the same weightless jump they'd done the first time he kicked off the ground on a broomstick, and, flying high above the ground, finally felt that Fenrir Greyback's fangs had released their hold on him. He'd whooped with joy and told a joke about an English Quidditch player, a Scottish Quidditch Player, and an Irish Quidditch player who walked into Quality Quidditch Supplies, which earned boisterous laughter from James and Sirius and himself an enviable place in their brotherhood.

"Well you sneaked up far too stealthily to be Nymphadora Tonks..."

"Oi!"

"...so I have to guess Celestina Warbeck."

There was a snort, then a voice that was attempting a sultry husky tone, but didn't quite manage not to giggle, tickled his ear. "Why? Have I stirred your cauldron?"

Remus hoped she didn't detect his slight squirm, although, close as her body was pressed to his, it seemed unlikely that anyone, especially someone with as acute powers of observation as an Auror must possess, to miss.

"Minerva McGonagall?"

Perhaps not the best choice to follow a cauldron-stirring euphemism; a quiver in the midsection of the slim figure behind him told him she was thinking the same.

"Feel like the fulfilment of a schoolboy fantasy?"

Flushing, Remus blurted, "Dolores Umbridge?"

He blinked against the light that assaulted his pupils when the hands fell away from his eyes. Tonks stepped away from him, and the wind at his back left him cold.

_Damn_. Remus' fingernails carved crescents into his palms as his fingers curled into tight fists.

"No." Tonks' voice sounded as if it had dropped from her throat and got stuck in her chest. "The Um_bitch_ is at Hogwarts, starting a high inquisition in the last free institution in this country. While _you_--"

She bit off the rest of her sentence when Remus turned toward her. Her face was pale and livid against her Auror uniform of a black cloak and scarlet robes and beneath dark hair pulled severely back from her forehead in a long ponytail.

"Sorry," she said. "It's just been a hell of a week, and I worked all night and seeing that news first thing..."

Dark eyes closing briefly, she shook herself, then looked at him as though seeing him for the first time.

"What are you doing here? I mean, not that I don't want you to be," she added hastily.

Two spots of red appeared on the apples of her high cheekbones. The colour gave Remus no more ease in her presence than her paleness; he hated that she felt so awkward in his.

Nothing had changed since he saw her last.

Nonetheless, as Sirius said, it was up to Remus to try to restore balance between them once more.

If such a thing were possible.

"Actually," he said, smiling, "I came to see you."

Tonks' eyes brightened, pleasure and hope blooming visibly on her countenance, which made Remus see the young woman Sirius had described asking after her absent boyfriend. He looked down at his shuffling feet and cursed himself for not having gone to more of an effort to get in touch with her during his travels.

"But you're standing out here."

Tonks' voice pitched high in question as she glanced sideways at the telephone box. Remus looked up to see her forehead dimpled as if she were trying to work out the meaning of a strange combination of Runes.

"I was trying to come up with a suitably grovelling boyfriend line so you wouldn't hex me on sight for not writing to you before yesterday."

It was, perhaps, not so grovelling as it ought to have been. Indeed, it was far closer to the charming, self-assured lines Sirius had used to give to get out of trouble. They had worked so seldom that one might say they had _never_ had the desired effect. Remus didn't dream he would have any more luck than Sirius. But Tonks' eyebrows leapt to her hairline.

"You wrote to me yesterday?"

Remus had not blessed the incompetence of the owl post since that regrettable confession of his burning love for Cicely Harkiss Sirius had talked him into the summer before their seventh year had gone awry.

He nodded eagerly. "To say I'd be back last night. I'm really sorry I didn't write sooner--"

"I was out in the field all day," she cut him off, lunging to seize his hands, "and then I volunteered to go to Manchester with Kingsley because he had a _lead_ on Sir--Black. Then I came right in to work this morning. I haven't even been home to shower, so if the owl went there...I was just having a coffee break, cos I'm bloody knackered." She indicated a seedy-looking coffee shop behind them. "I'm so sorry, Remus! I'd have left Kingsley to it if I'd known you'd be back."

"No apologies necessary."

Remus squeezed her hands, needing a physical anchor for the elation that stole through him at the realisation that Tonks hadn't been ignoring him, or avoiding him, that she had -- he couldn't deny it -- wanted to see him.

But his grin fell away as he noticed the deep purple rimming her eyes. He let go of her hands to cup her face and stroke his thumbs over the delicate skin beneath her long lashes. Why hadn't she morphed away the signs of fatigue? Her eyes fluttered shut as she leant into his touch. Was she too tired to hide it?

"Not the best ten days of your life, I take it?" he asked.

"I_hate _politics, and that's all its been. I signed up for crime-fighting, but the only crime I'm fighting is pretend."

She shook herself again, and then her lashes parted to reveal eyes lit with a pixie-like gleam. Her fingers tweaked his side. "Is that your way of saying I look terrible?"

"Merlin, no!"

Remus leaned into her instinctively for a kiss. But as his forehead touched hers, he glimpsed a robe-glad figure out the corner of his eye. Guiltily, he drew back, letting his hands slide down to her shoulders, then to her hands again.

When the crease formed once more between her eyebrows, Remus hastened to add, "A sight for a pair of very sore eyes." His gaze drifted up from hers. "Is your hair black or blue?"

"Blue. Do you like?"

"It's lovely. And rather thumbing your nose at Umbridge's dress code, isn't it?"

Tonks looked like a very hot reply was at the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. Her expression grim, her keen Auror's eyes swept him. "Hellish week for you, too?"

"Now in my case I _know_you're telling me I look terrible," he joked, by way of avoiding a straight answer.

The ensuing assurances that this was not the case, that perhaps he had a_ little _more beard than the stubble she found scrummy, but that his hair was lovely, gave him ample time to weigh up his conflicting thoughts. On the one hand he wanted to tell her everything. On the other, he thought he'd been a hell of a lucky git not to lose her, and that it would be an unnecessary risk to draw more attention to the ugly side of Lycanthropy now, when Umrbidge and his _Prophet_ mention were so close to the surface. Anyway she was clearly exhausted. His problems were the last thing she needed to think about when she had more than her share of her own.

"Let's just say I could do with a coffee break, as well," he said. "Not least of all because I stayed up way past my bedtime playing cards with Sirius."

"Exploding Snape?"

Remus nearly told her about the Yorick Zonko cards he'd added to the Marauders' prized personalised deck of Snap cards, but at the last second thought the better of bringing up their Hogsmeade date.

"Do we ever play anything else?"

"I haven't had my coffee yet," Tonks said, glancing downward, almost shyly. "I was in line when I saw you ought the window and ran out. I really hoped it was you, anyway, as I was putting my arms around you and I would've felt a right idiot to whisper _'Guess who' _in a stranger's ear."

Releasing her hands, Remus offered her his arm. "It's a date, then?"

"Mm." Tonks tucked both hands into the crook of his elbow, practically hugging him as they walked the few paces up the pavement to the coffee shop. "But my treat. I want to make sure you order something other than boring old hot chocolate for once."

"Tea?"

Tonks stuck her tongue out at him as he, chuckling, held the door for her to the accompaniment of a jangling bell.

"Just for that," she said, "I'm ordering you a caramel cappuccino with double caramel and extra whipped cream."

Remus pulled a face and studied the menu over the counter. "Would white hot chocolate be compromise enough?"

In the end she did order him a white hot chocolate -- but on the strict understanding that it was only because she hadn't seen him in ten days and couldn't be cruel to him after so lengthy a separation. Even if he was a regular old fuddy-duddy.

"I wouldn't listen to a girl who's dressed up for a bloody _Lord of the Rings_ convention," the young man behind the counter told Remus as he took Tonks' money. "Only I wish you'd tell me where it is you and your geeky friends meet, Miss, as my flatmate Barney would wet himself to go."

"I've told you a million times, Jim, it's _Tonks_! And I wish I could invite Barney, but my convention's very, erm, exclusive."

They found a corner table, and Remus helped her out of her cloak and into her chair.

"What was that all about?" he asked, draping his overcoat over the back of the chair across from her and seating himself. Their knees touched under the narrow table, and Tonks slipped one of her Wiz Marten-shod feet between his. "What's _Lord of the Rings_?"

"Haven't the foggiest," Tonks replied. She took a long drag from her straw of a frozen beverage in a clear plastic cup that appeared to contain more whipped cream than coffee. "First day he was working here, Jim gave me a funny look and asked if I was a Ringer, and as that didn't violate the Statute of Secrecy, I said yes."

"That was risky. You never know about Muggle London slang."

"Yeah well, you know me and risk-taking. S'why I chose Auror for my career and Order for my hobby."

"And a werewolf for your boyfriend?"

"Right." Her eyes sparkled with the mischief he found so irresistible as she took another drink from her straw. "Cos there's nothing riskier than a white hot chocolate."

Remus chuckled quietly with her, all the while thinking that really it was no laughing matter, that deep down, he hadn't meant his comment as a joke. His indecision about dropping in on Tonks at work had not come strictly down to fear that she wanted nothing more to do with him. He'd been considering her reputation. Though this was a Muggle coffee shop, it likely served a number of Ministry of Magic employees throughout the day. A glance out the window revealed a robed witch and wizard approaching the shop at that very moment. What if they recognised him and saw that Tonks was--? Oh no, they had gone next door, to the pub.

That didn't change the fact that someone of Tonks' acquaintance _could_ come in, or that it might be better for her if their relationship weren't public. As he sipped his white hot chocolate, he found he could not enjoy the heavenly drink for the niggling thought that he should have considered this before. He'd worried incessantly about Tonks being put off by his social status, but somehow it had never crossed his mind that it might influence _hers_. He could he not have done? How self-centred could he be?

"Remus?"

"Hm?"

"Are you okay?"

He forced a smile he did not feel. "Sorry, I was just thinking."

Tonks didn't look at all convinced -- or like she wanted to ask what she did next. "What about?"

In spite of last night's realisation that the fate of their relationship depended on his being fully honest with Tonks about the matters that weighed on him, he could not bring himself to answer her. Was there _really _a problem? Or was the problem him, and his incessant over-thinking? If that were the case, then it was something he needed to sort for himself, wasn't it, rather than concern Tonks with it?

"Are..." Tonks began, her voice was uncharacteristically low and tremulous; even more, Remus thought she appeared to be doing something she dreaded.

"Are _we_ okay?"

And there it was.

Regardless of whatever justifications he constructed, the matter didn't just involve him.

They were a _them_.

Which was rather a terrifying thought after just two months of holding hands at Order meetings and kissing each other hello and goodnight and occasionally letting his hands wander over the softly rounded bits of her and going out or staying in together whenever they could snatch a few precious moments from their respective duties. _Just a date_, she'd said to him the night she'd crossed the friendship boundary and caught him with the offer of a romance so tantalising he was powerless to resist. How could he have ever thought it would be _just a date_? Nothing was that simple.

Not for him.

He needed to answer her. The longer he avoided it, the paler her face got, the more prominent the purple smudges beneath her eyes became, the sadder, the wiser, the more _beaten_ she looked. It did not become her. The heart-shaped face of Nymphadora Tonks ought to be a pink bloom of youth and happiness. Not this.

_Not for him. _

"God, Remus!"

She reached across the table, for his hand that clutched his paper cup, knocking over her own in the process. It was empty, fortunately, but the rattle of the plastic on the faux wood tabletop rang as loudly in Remus' ears as if a china cup had crashed to the floor.

"What _is_ it? You didn't write. You didn't even kiss me out there. I thought...I thought everything was great before you went away. I mean, I know there were a few things we both could've done without on our date, especially you, but I thought we got through it pretty well, all things considered."

"Did you?"

As her fingers fiddled unconsciously with the frayed cuff of his shirtsleeve sticking out from the tatty edge of his jumper, Tonks' blue eyebrows met beneath her lined forehead. "Did I what?"

"Get through it."

Remus knew he sounded far terser than he had any right to when whatever was going on between them was most likely all his fault anyway, but choking the words out was the only way he could talk about this.

"Only you were pretty quiet most of the night, and by the end of the evening, I'd no idea how you were taking it."

Slowly, Tonks withdrew her hand across the table and into her lap as she leant back against her chair. Her posture sagged as if the idea his words conveyed had alit on her like a physical weight. She opened her mouth, but no sound passed between her lips. She shook her head, gave a little chuckle, as though laughing off a ridiculous thought.

Finally she righted her cup and sat up straight in her chair. "You're lecturing me for keeping my mouth shut?"

"I'm not _lecturing_ you for anything," said Remus, not quite following her, and not liking the suggestion that he was patronising her. He might be a lot of things, but condescending was not one of them. Tonks had no right to turn this around on him when he was doing his utmost to be forthcoming. She knew how difficult it was for him.

"I cannot deny that your unusual uncommunicativeness has left rather a lot about that night for me to interpret."

The scrape of Tonks' chair on the floor nearly covered a disgusted snort. She stood. "I can't believe you."

Remus gawped as she jerked her cloak from the back of her chair, nearly toppling it. "What have I done?"

"In addition to you not writing me a single bloody note for ten days and then lecturing me -- yes, _lecturing_, damn it! -- on communicativeness? A reasonably clever wizard such as yourself ought to suss it." She didn't look at him as she slung her cloak over her shoulders and fastened the glossy black button at her neck. "I've got to get back to work."

As she grabbed her plastic cup and turned around to shove it into the overflowing rubbish bin behind their table, Remus recovered his wits somewhat. "Were you embarrassed?"

One of Tonks' heavy shoes klunked against the bin as walked into it in her shock. She turned to him, eyes hard, lips dead white as her face, barely moving as she said,

"Excuse me?"

Remus hesitated, but knew there was no going back now. "To be out with me."

His gaze wandered over her shoulder, but he commanded himself to meet her eyes.

"To know that when people recognise me, they're afraid and disgusted, to know that there are shops, restaurants, and homes in which I am not welcome."

Though mortified anew to actually acknowledge, to _Tonks_, what had happened that night, to _him_, Remus knew he might as well go all in and address the Hippogriff in the room.

"To know that the man you are seeing is regarded as a 'controversial staff appointment.'"

For a moment, Remus thought he'd somehow come across a Time-turner and been transported back eleven nights ago to Zonko's Joke shop, so perfectly did Tonks' face match the one she had worn then. Even when he realised this was not the case, the memory, along with his own failure, which Sirius had pointed out to him, to make her feel better, softened Remus now. He had asked if she was embarrassed with quite the accusatory tone. By no means must she think he was putting her on trial.

He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "I wouldn't blame you if you did, you know."

But Tonks didn't look like she could be more offended if she _had_ been on trial.

"How could you?" she flung at him. "How could you think that for one moment--"

"You didn't see your own face! I know humiliation when I see it, believe me--"

"Do you know what humiliates me? Working for the likes of Dolores Umbridge."

"You don't--"

"_Under_secretary, my arse!"

Tonks turned and kicked the bin again and pounded her fists against the sides of her legs, ignoring Jim at the counter who asked whether her boyfriend had pissed her off by saying _Star Wars _was better than _Lord of the Rings_. Luckily there were no other customers in the shop. Probably they were all at the pub; it must be lunchtime now.

"She's a fear monger, and Fudge is scared shitless, so she's got complete control of Wizarding policy!"

Another kick.

"She's the ideal servant of You-Know-Who because he doesn't even have to recruit her to do his dirty work! And my Death Eater uncle is the one the media run to as the voice of the Wizarding community! That's what humiliates me!"

She jerked to face him, ponytail whipping the side of her face.

"It's humiliating to have to close my eyes and ears and pretend I'm not bothered by their bigoted ideology."

Her chest heaved and her nostrils flared as she sucked in deep breaths through her nose. Her eyes glistened, and she turned away again, and gave the bin another savage kick.

"It's humiliating to have to act like it doesn't hurt. It's like denying you."

"But you have to," rasped Remus.

"I have to." Tonks nodded. "And I do."

Remus was not untouched by her outburst, but he found that rather than moving him to a new understanding about the workings of their complicated relationship, it only solidified his conviction in the conclusions he'd already arrived upon, but had been too selfish, too_ cowardly_, to accept.

"Forgive me," he said, stiffly, "but I am afraid I don't see how you_ can_ do and be involved with me."

"And then you accuse _me_ of being ashamed of you?" Tonks went on vehemently, as if she hadn't heard him, but then the idea appeared to die in the ether into which she'd spoken it. The colour of passion in her face deepened. "_What_ did you say?"

Remus looked down at his hands, fingers splayed on the table. "You shouldn't be here, with me. They'll know you're not toeing the line."

Silence.

There had been the clinking of coffee pots being swapped out of the machines and loaded into the dishwasher, but now that had stopped. Remus glanced at the counter and saw the young man watching them unabashedly, leaning on the counter. But he straightened up and began wiping down the counters when Remus frowned at him. He whistled, as if this would make his act of eavesdropping less obvious; Remus was tempted to Silence him when Tonks' clear voice pulled him back to attention.

"You're breaking up with me." It was not a question.

Remus swallowed guilt and a sick taste. Would he feel either if he were doing the right thing? "Not entirely..."

Tonks gave a short, bitter laugh. "Only partly?"

"Look, Dora," said Remus, letting out his breath heavily, turning his hands over so that his open palms were extended up to her in submission. "All I'm saying is that perhaps we should rethink our relationship in light of...recent developments."

"As if we're adapting a bloody battle strategy?"

His neck and shoulders tensed. "Please don't do this. You are very young, and--"

Tonks' eyes blazed and Remus thought her hand went for her wand, but it was only his imagination. "You're calling me immature now?"

"Don't put words in my mouth."

"_'You are very young'_ came straight from the horse's mouth! If you feel that way, I don't want to be with you, either. It's pretty rich from someone who's never had a serious romance because he's scared shitless to stop bloody thinking and let anyone love him for who and what he is."

The words struck Remus like a Cruciatus Curse, and for just a second, Tonks' features contorted as if she, too, felt the pain of them in her very core. She gave a little strangled cry, and Remus thought she might apologise.

Instead, her expression hardened into one that said he deserved to hurt, which he was inclined to agree with, and that some part of her was glad to have hurt him, for which he couldn't blame her.

"I've really got to go now," she said.

As she strode forward, her eyes on the door, she caught her foot on her chair and went sprawling. Remus was not so stunned that reflex did not kick in; he leapt up to catch her arm to steady her.

"Please, Dora, not like this--"

She glared at him and jerked her arm out of his grasp. "I have nothing more to say to you. Except don't call me Dora anymore."

With a jangle that was far too bright and cheerful for the circumstances, she was gone, and Remus was left to sink back into his chair to drink his no longer hot white chocolate and to try and convince himself that this was for the best, now that he knew so much more than _just a date _was at stake.

But all he could think was that Tonks was gone, and he hadn't even kissed her.

* * *

_**A/N: Reviewers get a Valentine's Day date with a Remus who solemnly swears not to turn into a noble prat and break up with you!**_


	3. Part Three

_Apologies for the glitch that caused alerts to go out for chapters 4-6. There are only three chapters of the story so far, and if all goes to plan, there won't be more than four! _

* * *

**Part Three**

"HALF-BLOOD MUTANT! DARK CREATURE SCUM! HOW DARE YOU CARRY YOUR WEREWOLF FILTH INTO THE MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF MY NOBLE FATHERS!"

The portrait's abuse was the last thing Remus needed to hear upon returning home to number twelve, Grimmauld Place after his disastrous coffee date with Tonks, but it was, nonetheless, the first greeting that filled his ears as he stepped through the peeling black door and into the front hall.

At least Walburga Black's voice drowned out the squeaking of the hinges which always set his teeth on edge. Not that her voice didn't have a rather similar grating effect.

_CRACK!_

"SHUT UP, YOU MISERABLE OLD HAG!"

Sirius materialised quite suddenly out of the air at the foot of the stairs; he had, apparently, Apparated in the midst of tying the sash of a tartan dressing gown, which fell to the tops of his knobbly knees and, apart from a pair of dark blue slippers, seemed to be the only stitch of clothing he had on.

Remus watched him shamble across the floor to his mother's portrait (losing one of his slippers along the way) and blast her with a series of spells they'd tried before to silence her or get her off the wall, once again to no avail. In between spells, Sirius battered the portrait with a verbal assault that included accusing Walburga of not being _toujours pur_, as she clearly bore more resemblance to a banshee than to any witch he'd ever met. Miraculously, this slur on her humanity did the trick.

As Walburga sobbed and whimpered behind her heavy brocade curtains, a shuffling sound drew Remus' attention down the dark corridor. He saw Kreacher skulking along the wall, his saggy, age-speckled skin nearly camouflaging him against the limp and mildewed wallpaper.

"Blood traitors and Dark Creatures abuse Kreacher's mistress," the House-elf muttered. "Kreacher is coming. He will comfort noble Mistress in her distress."

"Right, how'd it go, then?" Shoving his foot back into his wayward slipper, Sirius grinned inquisitively at Remus, almost as if he'd forgotten the melee of the moment before and was oblivious to the pathetic display carrying on right in their midst. "All fair once more in love and war?"

The ruckus having distracted Remus from his personal woes, it took him a moment to regain his bearings. Before he could formulate a suitably clever reply that would both satisfy Sirius and indicate that this subject was not open for discussion, Sirius approached Remus where he remained rooted by the door, his grin gone, scrutinising with shrewdly narrowed eyes.

"Bloody Merlin's balls! You look right spell-shocked, Moony. What the hell happened?"

"I broke up with her. Or she broke up with me. Somebody broke up with somebody. I think."

So much for not discussing.

"Damn." The grey eyes flicked down, to Remus' hand. "What's in that shopping bag?"

"Firewhisky." Remus glanced up the staircase. "Have you got company by the name of Minerva McGonagall upstairs, Padfoot? Only I've never seen you in a tartan dressing gown before."

Sirius eyes bulged and a hand flew up to cover his yawning mouth as he gave a dramatic gasp. "Moony, you randy bastard!" He slapped Remus playfully on the shoulder. "It's a school day!"

"I should have thought that would hold the most appeal for you: confessing to being such a naughty boy that you deserve an early morning detention."

"Or maybe it's that _she's_ been such a naughty old girl that she deserves an early morning detention with me." Sirius' devilish gleam fell into a look of despondence as he said rather dully, "Molly bought it for me. Said she overheard me say something about tartan dressing gowns. I'm only wearing it because I spilt red wine on my other one last week and I can't get that useless sod Kreacher to do my laundry, even though I've threatened to hang him up there."

He gestured to the House-elf heads above the staircase, and didn't see Kreacher shooting him a petulant look over his bony shoulder.

"I'll have a look at it later," said Remus, "as I've my own to do. Although I think if Minerva knew the way you talk about her, she'd say laundry duty is a suitable punishment for you."

"I could offer to do her drawers while I'm at it. Come on, then!" Sirius snatched the paper bag from Remus' hand, letting it litter the floor when he'd drawn out the bottle of Firewhisky, which he cradled in his arms and ogled positively lasciviously. "Drawing room. We're breaking this open."

"Didn't you just get up?" Remus asked dubiously even as he followed Sirius up the staircase to the first floor.

"No better time to start drinking, is there? It is the afternoon, you know." He gestured to the once-cursed grandfather clock as they entered the drawing room. "Not like drinking in the morning."

"At least don't start on an empty stomach."

Sirius flicked his wand lazily over his shoulder, in the vague direction of the hall. "_Accio_ cornflakes."

Remus was making his way across the large, formerly grandiose room to one of two wing-backed chairs arranged with a settee around the fireplace, and had just taken out his wand to start a blaze in the grate when a flat object of substantial size (thankfully, not of substantial weight) thumped into the back of his head with a rattle of hundreds of tiny, lightweight objects inside it. He turned to find himself stood face-to-face with the box of cornflakes Sirius had Summoned. Remus raised his eyebrows and held it out to Sirius, who didn't have the decency to look even a tad apologetic as he poured two shots of Firewhisky at the drinks cabinet.

"I can't get drunk," said Remus. "I've got to give a report at the meeting. Oh bugger."

The box of cornflakes fell from his suddenly slackened hand and popped open on the floor; spilt cornflakes crunched under his shoes into the carpet as he fumbled back for the chair behind him. He ran his hands over his scruffy face.

"I've got to see her tonight."

Sirius brought Remus a drink. "Nothing for it then but to get completely and utterly pissed. That's what Sober-up Tonic's for."

Though still feeling rather dazed with dread, Remus felt his head bob in assent. His fingers closed around the cool glass Sirius pressed into his hand.

"KREACHER!"

Sirius' shout made Remus jolt and spill a little Firewhisky on his trousers.

"You're not being very mindful of my spell-shocked condition," Remus said, but Sirius wasn't very mindful of that, either, bellowing, "BRING ME SOME MILK AND THE BLOODY NEWSPAPER, YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SHIT!"

A moment later the House-elf slunk into the room with a tray, letting milk slosh all over the _Prophet_ and the already spoilt carpet. Creeping by Remus' chair, he leered.

"Kreacher reads the newspaper. How happy it makes him to see the filthy layabout Dark Creature put in his place by Mistress Narcissa's noble pure-blood husband--_AIEEE!_"

A jet of red light issued from Sirius' wand; the spell struck the House-elf square in his sunken chest and flipped him backward onto the carpet under a downpour of milk and newspaper. The tray struck him on the top of his bald head, and he emitted a pitiful whimper.

"Sirius!" Remus leapt to his feet and cleaned up the mess, but when he touched the tiny, bone-thin arm to help the House-elf up, Kreacher spat and flinched away in revulsion.

"What's the stinking bastard talking about?" demanded Sirius, standing tall and imperious over his servant.

"Is the lazy blood traitor master too thick to read the wizards' newspaper? Or perhaps in Azkaban he forgot how to read." Kreacher's spiteful bravado fled him when Sirius raised his wand again; the House-elf darted, practically on all fours, from the drawing room.

Sirius snatched the _Prophet _from the sodden carpet, his heavy black eyebrows slanting at a dangerous angle toward his nose as he scanned the front page.

Remus, meanwhile, set the restored milk bottle on the coffee table, Vanished the spilt cornflakes, and resumed his seat in the wing-backed chair. He downed his Firewhisky, then settled back to watch the anger always simmering in Sirius' eyes rise to a boil.

"FUCKING RAG!"

Sirius slammed the newspaper on the coffee table, rattling the milk bottle and his own shot of Firewhisky, then pointed his wand as if he were firing a Killing Curse, which blasted a crater in the antique furniture and reduced the _Prophet_ to cinders.

"AND FUCKING UMBRIDGE!"

"I'll drink to that." Remus Summoned the Firewhisky bottle from the drinks cabinet and poured himself another shot.

Instead of taking a drink, Sirius stormed to the fireplace. "I'm Flooing to Hogwarts right now and getting Harry."

"In your tartan dressing gown and slippers -- that'll put the fear of Sirius Black in them," Remus teased, hoping to distract Sirius from the impossible notion that would, inevitably, lead to another bout of anger at being stuck in this house, unable to do for the Order or for Harry.

But Sirius seemed not to have heard him. "Arthur and Molly can withdraw their kids, as well, and you can give the lot of them a proper education here."

It pained Remus to hear it -- in part because it was a suggestion of which he very much approved -- but at least it gave him sufficient time to stand and snatch the ivory box of Floo Powder from the mantelpiece before Sirius could grab a pinch from it and do something brash and disastrous.

"What the hell, Moony?"

Sirius' eyes flashed silver sparks like spells fired in a duel as he grabbed for the box; Remus tucked it under his arm and turned his body so that his shoulder was at Sirius' chest, keeping the Floo Powder safely out of reach. He cast a protective spell over it that would not allow Sirius to take it down from the mantel, or even open it, then replaced it on the ornate carved shelf.

"I'm not joking!" Sirius protested.

Remus faced him sadly. "I know you're not joking."

"It's what James and Lily would want." A wrenching note of desperation crept into Sirius hoarse voice. "I'm Harry's godfather!"

"And as such," said Remus firmly, but gently, "James and Lily wouldn't want you to be caught and fed to the Dementors." Laying his hands on Sirius' shoulders, he tried not to react to how thin he was; he was a mere skeleton of the man he had used to be, the man he _should _be now. ".What good would you be to Harry, then?"

For a moment Sirius stared at him, the sinewy shoulder muscles beneath his flannel dressing gown straining with their full strength against Remus' hands. Then, as if stretched to his limit, he exhaled. Remus felt it as all the fight went out of him. Sirius hunched and swayed, as if about to lean his head on Remus' shoulder, but something veil-like went up over his eyes, hiding the inner workings of that pounding heart; instead he rested one arm on the mantelpiece, shielding his face as he rubbed his fingers over his forehead.

"If I were free," he said, "I'd take Harry out of school. In a heartbeat."

"And if you asked me, I'd teach him in a heartbeat. Especially as I know you'd pay me handsomely for it. Although Lily, I think, would prefer anyone else to tutor him in Potions."

Sirius returned his small smile. "I was a dab hand myself -- when I wasn't intentionally trying to blow up the Potions classroom."

"I imagine you'd have done more than try if Severus had been our teacher instead of Professor Slughorn." Remus patted him on the back. "Don't worry, Padfoot. Umbridge may be High Inquisitor, but Dumbledore's still Headmaster."

Sirius grunted and looked away again, which Remus found unsettling. Had Sirius no confidence in Dumbledore? Remus supposed that what Sirius had been through would shake a person's confidence in everyone, and his imprisonment, for all intents and purposes, had not ended yet, by any stretch; but surely Sirius saw that this really was the only way?

Lowering himself once more into the wing-backed chair, Remus said, "Have some cornflakes so you can have a drink. I think you need it more than I."

Kreacher had not, of course, brought Sirius a bowl or spoon with which to eat his cereal, as Sirius hadn't thought to demand them when he'd shouted for the milk. Rather than Summon them, Sirius cleaned off a dusty heirloom bowl from a curio cabinet and filled it with cornflakes. And as it turned out, Kreacher's milk errand had been a pointless one, as Sirius poured Firewhisky over his cereal. Hunched on the Victorian settee of water-stained silk facing Remus, he Conjured a spoon and tucked in.

"That wasn't exactly what I meant by having breakfast so you can drink," said Remus, grimacing at the concoction.

At least Sirius had the decency to swallow before he said, "I assume that little blurb in the _Prophet _had something to do with the break-up you think just happened?"

The crisis of stopping Sirius from doing anything brash had energised Remus, and he'd maintained that energy level as he calmed his friend down. Now he felt utterly drained, his feet leaden weight on the floor and his hands too heavy to lift from the armrests of his chair. The thought of rehashing the whole ordeal to Sirius made him feel more exhausted still.

"It came up," said Remus.

Sirius scooped more Firewhisky flakes onto his spoon. "I'm surprised you went through with going to see her at all."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Swallowing abruptly, Sirius looked said, "I didn't mean it like that. I meant I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't gone."

Though Sirius wore a rare, genuinely apologetic expression, Remus felt cross. "Wouldn't you? I didn't just imagine you nearly risking your life and your freedom for someone you care about a moment ago, did I?"

"No, but that's me. You're not me, and if I'd been through everything you've been through, I wouldn't be me, either. And if I were you, I wouldn't have been keen to walk into the dragon's lair."

Remus blinked.

Sirius looked down at the bowl in his hands, looking equally befuddled by the words that had just come out of his mouth. "I've had enough Firewhisky, haven't I?"

"Probably. Or I have, because, frighteningly, that made perfect sense to me."

Grinning, Sirius set his bowl on the maimed coffee table and stretched his long, lean frame out on the settee. He retained the cereal box, and the sleeve of his dressing gown bunched up on his arm as he reached into the box and delved deep for handfuls of cornflakes, which he shovelled into his mouth, dry.

"As it turns out," said Remus, making a mental note not to eat anymore cornflakes till he'd gone shopping for a new box, "I didn't walk into the dragon's lair. I ran into Tonks outside a coffee shop." With a sigh, he Summoned the Firewhisky from the coffee table and poured himself a second shot. "I wish I'd known you wouldn't have given me hell about avoiding the Ministry. I might still have a girlfriend."

Sirius_ hmm_ed and traced the outline of a water stain on the cushion with his index finger. "Yes, well, seems like the _Prophet_ inevitably would've become an issue. Especially as you were dead set on expecting the worst to happen. Not to say _all_ the blame lies with you, Moony, but you are a walking self-fulfilling prophecy."

"I've learnt that if you always expect the worst, then you're never disappointed." He knocked back the drink and grinned wryly. "But you may be very pleasantly surprised."

"Maybe." Sirius' eyes flicked up and held Remus'. "But if you always expect the worst of _people_, you'll always disappoint _them_."

Remus looked down at the shot glass in his hand and watched the drop of amber liquid roll around the bottom as he turned it. "There's no question that I've disappointed Tonks. Though I was a fool to think that I could ever hope to do anything otherwise."

When Sirius didn't reply immediately, Remus thought to take advantage of the lapse in conversation to get out of it before it could continue, at an undoubtedly more probing level. He collected the breakfast things (including the box of cornflakes, which Sirius relinquished willingly, too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice Remus had pulled it out of his arms) the shot glasses, and the Firewhisky onto the tray on which Kreacher had carried up the milk.

"At least she's young," Remus said, carrying it all toward the wide open French doors to the hall. "She'll get over it."

Sirius snorted. "Hope you didn't say that to her."

Remus couldn't stop himself tensing and faltering on his way out of the drawing room. From behind him, he heard the faint rustlings of Sirius sitting up on the settee.

"Moony, you _didn't_."

"I said she was young," Remus admitted, his voice tight, "not that she would get over it."

"No wonder she broke up with you, you condescending git!"

Remus turned to face his friend, who was eyeing him with a mixture of bemusement and disbelief and perhaps even the faintest trace of disgust from over the back of the settee. "She wouldn't let me explain myself."

"What's to explain?"

"She was already angry at me before that. I'm not sure why."

Sirius viewed him from under a sceptically quirked eyebrow. "Well it couldn't have helped matters to say that."

Remus turned to go again, but stopped when Sirius called to him to wait. He got up from the settee and padded across the room to him, scratching his thigh through the tartan dressing gown.

"Look, Remus, I know that since you're older you think you should be wiser and more responsible than Tonks. But since you've got no real experience to speak of, it's just numbers. This is one case where thirty-five equals twenty-two. Or twenty-three. How old is she?"

"Twenty-three in December."

Sirius smirked. "Should be your kind of maths, seeing as you always seem to make two and two equal five."

"Try making that point again after you've got over your Firewhisky breakfast," Remus replied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've a rather extensive to do list before the meeting, starting with cleaning up after you."

Remus' to do list had only come into existence the moment he'd spoken it, and he'd done so with the intent of not only getting out of talking about his wretched morning, but to stop himself thinking about it, as well, by keeping busy. The plan might have succeeded, had it included anything like writing a report of his assignment to share at the meeting; but he'd already prepared for the earlier interview with Dumbledore, and would essentially be presenting the same information to the Order, and as it was, washing up from Sirius' late breakfast, his own earlier one, and last night's late night roast beef sandwich dinner in no way occupied his mind. Not that that meant his was a job well done; he was pretty sure even Tonks had never done greater mischief to china, even when she'd recently fallen down stairs with a tray of it.

That thought made his distraction all the worse, as he kept wondering how she was getting along at work, whether she was suffering the same malady of distraction as he. Merlin, he hoped not, he thought as he cut himself for the third time while shaving. Tonks' line of work was too dangerous for her thoughts to be anywhere but on the job at hand. If she found herself in trouble today because he'd distressed her...But he reminded himself that she hadn't passed three years of stringent Auror training without learning to bottle her emotions so as to keep her wits about her. At which the thought crept in that maybe he ought to have considered that before he'd accused her of not being capable of doing so.

No wonder she'd broken up with him, indeed. Sirius was right; he _was_ a condescending git.

Even an hour in the more cheerful domain of the Burrow, while Molly trimmed his hair, did nothing to lift his spirits, brought no reprieve from brooding. Or moping. He thought he was probably moping. But how could he not mope when Molly was chattering about the card party she and Arthur were having on Saturday night, an invitation to which Tonks had, apparently, accepted for them while he was away? Hestia and Dedalus would be there, too, as Molly was sure they fancied each other and wanted to encourage them to act on their feelings. Remus' heart ached as memories rose up of those early days with Tonks, when it had been so terrifyingly sweet to realise, after so many years alone, he felt something more than friendship for a woman, and, even sweeter and more terrifying, that a woman felt something more than friendship for him.

Though for no longer. She would get over him, he was sure of it. She couldn't not, for what a colossal prat he'd been to her. But how long would it take? He wasn't worth pining for; and yet his ego resisted the idea of her moving on from him _too_ quickly. As if there were an appropriate amount of time for these things. And then he was disgusted with himself for allowing himself to indulge in such conceit.

That disgust, however, didn't change the fact that Remus dreaded seeing Tonks because he couldn't bear her looking at him differently now, even if he deserved it, even though she was better off without him, because he knew he wouldn't be looking at her any differently any time soon. If ever. She was Nymphadora Tonks. His pink-haired champion.

She was one of a kind.

At least he was spared seeing her at dinner. As usual, most of the Order turned up early at Headquarters for a meal cooked by Molly prior to the meeting. Kingsley swept in bearing tidings that Tonks had got tied up doing something or another for Dawlish. As he spoke, he shot Remus a look that said he knew what had happened during Tonks' coffee break, as well as confirmed Remus' suspicion that Tonks had only allowed herself to get tied up with Dawlish because she was going out of her way to avoid _him_. Which said quite a lot about how she was feeling towards Remus, as she liked Dawlish only marginally better than she liked Severus.

Feeling Sirius' steady gaze from the chair beside him, Remus knew his own thoughts were plainly readable to the perceptive grey eyes of his oldest friend; Alastor Moody's ocular organs, both real and magical, searched him as well from far down the long kitchen table, the crags of his face seeming to deepen into the resentful mask of an overprotective father. Though Remus wondered if a Boggart might take a new form the next time he encountered one, he also thought that Mad-Eye's concern for Tonks would ultimately work out to _his _advantage once Mad-Eye knew why Remus had called it off with her. The ex-Auror must want to see his protégée involved with a suitor who wouldn't damage her hard-earned reputation or put her at risk of bodily harm.

Not that Remus thought now was really the time to pipe up and clarify things. Especially as Molly was giving him a sympathetic look as she gave him an extra piece of chicken and asking if he hadn't seen Tonks since he'd got back, then volunteering Arthur to swap night duties with Remus if he was on tonight so he and Tonks could have time together. Somehow, even with three pairs of eyes on him that knew the truth, one of them Magical, belonging to three wizards he wasn't particularly keen to be on the wrong side of, he managed to keep his voice steady as he replied that he had seen Tonks briefly and did not have duty tonight, though he appreciated the generous offer.

To his deep gratitude, no one else (except perhaps Severus, who was staring malevolently from where he sat cloaked in shadow at the foot of the table) seemed to note the silent communication between himself and Tonks' colleagues, or notice the look he sensed Sirius giving him as Emmeline Vance seated herself with a rustle in the chair to Remus' right, which was always occupied by Tonks. He'd got so accustomed to a head of vividest pink hair bobbing with laughter at his shoulder, or occasionally leaning against him and tickling his neck and chin as a girlish hand found its way into his or rested on his thigh under table; the erect posture and rustling emerald green silk shawl beside him now made him feel like a stranger in a strange land as the conversation turned to the day's news of Umbridge's ascent to the role of Hogwarts High Inquisitor.

Minerva expressed concern for the future of academic freedom at the school; Severus remarked that the _qualified_ professors had nothing to fear, whilst those who didn't belong in educational roles, like Sybill Trelawney and Rubeus Hagrid (who was absent) -- to which Minerva coolly replied that though there were particular courses of study she thought less essential to a well-rounded education than others, she trusted that the Headmaster never filled those subjects with an instructor who wasn't perfectly adequate, and that it was the Ministry who didn't know a good teacher from a troll; and Mad-Eye discouraged them all further by commenting that meanwhile an entire generation of witches and wizards would be less capable of defending themselves than any before, and the Auror division would languish for lack of recruits.

Remus sighed and pushed his food around his plate with his fork. _ If only_ he'd not forgotten that one dose of Wolfsbane Potion, he might not have had cause to resign. Then he could at least defend himself against the likes of Umbridge and the _Daily Prophet_; he might be a voice for werewolf rights, rather than the bearer of dire tidings that the disenfranchised English werewolf population were another potential enemy in the coming war; he might deserve a normal wizard's life and enjoy a bright future, as Tonks had almost convinced him he did. But he'd been careless, and thanks to him, people were regarded as monsters, and if the werewolves did, indeed, align with Voldemort, it might be all the worse for people like him after the war...

His name, barked out beside him, redirected his attention outward. Sirius had pitched his idea of withdrawing Harry and the Weasleys from school, of which Molly appeared to approve, given the way she was looking at Arthur as if to ask his opinion. Arthur gave it -- at the precise moment Severus, features twisted into an uglier expression than usual, had seemed to be at the brink of saying something that would have Sirius dangling him upside down and showing his underpants to the Order. The Order, Arthur pointed out, could hardly take their children out of Hogwarts and maintain their façade of supporting the Ministry. Even Sirius had nothing to argue against that.

Remus leant toward Sirius as Dung steered the discussion onto a much less grave course and whispered, "That's the main reason why it just won't work between Tonks and me. She takes these things personally, and struggles to hide her emotions."

"Good point," Sirius replied, cutting a new potato in half with the edge of his fork, then popping it into his mouth. "Her sense of justice will vanish now she's done with you."

It was precisely the sort of startlingly accurate and disarming comment Sirius had mastered even as a youth, against which Remus, though he couldn't bring himself to admit Sirius was right, couldn't argue with, either. In fact he didn't utter a word to anyone for the remainder of the meal...

...until Tonks blundered into the basement kitchen, and they both told Emmeline that she needn't change chairs. But Emmeline had already got up, rearranging her shawl so that it draped her shoulders without the slightest wrinkle, and Tonks had no choice but to take the chair Emmeline had so courteously sacrificed. She slid into it without so much as a sideways glance at Remus, which cut him even deeper than the fact that she'd not wanted to sit next to him to begin with. He, of course, had not expected thigh-rubbing or hand-holding, but no meeting of their eyes?

Meanwhile, the entire Order's eyes were watching them; Remus felt the whole room thrumming with their expectation, with their likely dread of a romance gone wrong making them all miserable, not to mention getting in the way of duty.

No. This would not do.

They had to be friends.

"Hello, Tonks."

_Tonks_. It felt so impersonal after the intimacy of _Dora_. Would he ever be able to teasingly use her Christian name again?

"Hi."

Her voice was so dull, so flat, so tired, as if her customary _wotcher_ required more energy than she possessed. Or was it that she couldn't trouble herself to output any energy for _him_? She turned her dark eyes up to him and he saw that they contained none of their usual sparkle.

"I see you've had your hair cut," she said.

Remus tried not to relive the sensation of her fingers sliding through his hair, or fisting in it as they shared long, slow kisses on her sofa; he tried not to hear her simple compliment this morning that she liked his hair shaggy and spilling over his collar. Of course he _did _think about both, especially the latter, which made him feel accused, as if he'd violated a claim she had on his person. He wished he hadn't cut it. Her own hair was still the dark blue ponytail she'd been wearing that morning, only it seemed to hang limp now, and was shot through with streaks of faded black. Or were they brown? They were inarguably mousy and gave her a wan look. Her remark combined with her appearance to tell Remus that she would not be over him any time soon.

Whatever his ego might have gained from this knowledge was outweighed by the sickness settling into the pit of his stomach as something else Tonks had once said -- the last time they'd rowed, in fact -- drifted to the front of his mind: they would never be able to just be friends. He hadn't been sure he believed her then, but he couldn't deny the truth of the much magic between them, which had always existed, drawing them together and bringing a sparkle of flirtation and promise into their very earliest acquaintance, and which, even estranged as they were now, yet held them connected, like a magical bond. Tonks had been right, and Remus knew that this uncomfortable situation would not improve. Their friendship was so entwined with their romance that it couldn't survive apart from the context of their being something more, as well. Perhaps in time they might learn, but they didn't _have _time. And there would always be the memory of having been more; in Remus' mind, that would spoil anything else they might try to be. Their relationship could only ever be all or nothing.

_Nothing_.

It was as hollow as anything he'd felt when James died, Peter, too (he'd thought), and Sirius as good as. Could he bear such a loss again? She'd come to mean so much to him in so short a time.

But didn't he _have _to bear it? He'd been so selfish up till now. She would see that eventually. To have her would always mean to lose her. Better now, before there was more to lose.

The dispirited state of mind he'd worked himself into did him no favours when the time came to report his recent errand for the Order. He wanted nothing more than to give an objective narrative of the werewolves he'd met in the past ten days, but he couldn't help but think his colleagues must be comparing his life to those poor souls' -- Severus certainly was, staring down his hooked nose and the length of the table with those hard black eyes and his twisted mouth. Molly and Hestia murmured in pity -- and why shouldn't they? Remus himself pitied the werewolves. But there was fear in the women's eyes, too, at the implication of human misfortune being channelled into monstrous evil. He couldn't miss their fear because he shared it; though it was not the violence that terrified him so much as the indignity, and the isolation. He couldn't bring himself to look at Tonks as he spoke, and though her eyes were on him as he resumed his place next to her, he still couldn't look, lest he see fear and pity etched on _her _dear heart-shaped face.

"Remus, Tonks!" came Bill Weasley's voice from across the kitchen the second the meeting was adjourned. Remus turned his head to see the long-haired, younger version of Arthur, sans glasses, unfold his long legs from where he'd been sat on the staircase after arriving late. He strode to them, black dragonhide boots decked in buckles clinking heavily on the wooden floor. In addition to the boots, he wore a dragonhide jacket, which made Remus think of Sirius' motorcycle clothes. (Thank Merlin Bill was wearing tatty light blue jeans instead of that unfortunate pair of leather trousers Sirius had bought to complete _his_dragonhide ensemble.) Beneath the jacket was a form-fitting Hobgoblins First Great Britain Tour t-shirt that he'd no doubt found in a second hand clothing shop, as Bill was a bit young to have actually acquired it at their '76 tour. Although Remus had an identical, if shabbier and more faded, t-shirt, from when he _had _attended the Manchester concert; Mr. and Mrs. Potter had given James four tickets for his sixteenth birthday, along with enough pocket money to treat Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs to whatever Hobgoblins paraphernalia they fancied. Sirius, naturally, had tried to bring one of the band's broomies home with him, while Remus settled for a t-shirt.

Tonks did greet Bill with a "Wotcher," but it lacked her usual gusto.

"What?" Bill asked, spreading his arms so that his jacket fell back to show the faded caricatures of the band members emblazoned across his front. "You're not going to harass me about what a crap band the Hobgoblins were? No Conjuring turnips to hurl at me for wearing their t-shirt?"

"The Hobgoblins were a crap band, Bill," said Tonks. "You deserve to have turnips hurled at you for wearing their t-shirt."

Her demeanour was still subdued, but Remus couldn't help but think, as she attempted a grin, how well Bill and Tonks complimented one another -- or would have done, if Tonks' hair had stood out in all directions in one of her favourite shocking hair colours, wearing heavily patched jeans and a Weird Sisters t-shirt instead of her Auror uniform. A wizard like Bill, so much closer to her own age, with a family and a promising career and the world at his feet, was the sort of boyfriend Tonks should have, not a werewolf who hadn't attended a concert since the one now mocked by her generation, and who couldn't surprise her on her birthday to tickets to see her favourite band...

Still, Remus' insides turned to stone, and he was pretty sure his eyes must have changed to green, because he'd never felt more monstrous in his life, not even at the full moon, than now. His fingers twitched to grab his wand and hex Bill back up the stairs where he'd come from, thumping his backside against every step to really drive the point home. It was the most ridiculous bout of jealousy he'd ever experienced; Bill hadn't done anything but give Tonks the chummiest of sideways hugs. Up until today, Remus would have followed up such an exchange by slipping an arm around her waist, and offering his hand to Bill. Now that she was no longer his, and he couldn't, he could hardly stand to shake Bill's hand, though he liked Bill and knew he wasn't interested in Tonks.

Quite the opposite, in fact, as the conversation revealed.

"I've had this idea," Bill said. He looked as if he'd invented a new spell he was sure the Magical Patents Office would approve, but then he glanced over his shoulder, checking Molly's proximity, and lowered his voice so that Remus' shoulder brushed Tonks' as they leant in to hear him, and he felt her sharp hitch of breath: "Please don't say anything to my mum coz she'll make a great fuss and it's early days yet, but I'm seeing someone."

Beside Remus, Tonks tensed. Or was that him tensing against her? He was quite sure he was relieved Bill was off the list of Eligible Bachelors Who Might Sweep Tonks Off Her Feet, as the Order had enough warring factions in Severus and Sirius (and occasionally himself). But news of another man's luck in love was hardly something he could rejoice in today. His congratulations lacked anything near enthusiasm, and Tonks' question of who was the lucky witch was abnormally quiet. Bill was too smitten to notice their less-than-cheerful moods.

"Her name's Fleur. She works at Gringott's. She's not from here -- she's French, actually. I've been helping her with her English."

Tonks nodded; Remus again thought it spoke volumes about her emotional state (and his) that neither of them had the heart to rib Bill about whether he was sure it wasn't that Fleur was helping him with his French."

"Fleur?" asked Remus, the name suddenly jogging his memory. "Was she the--?"

"Beauxbatons' Triwizard Champion," Bill finished, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops and grinning. He was self-conscious, yet neither arrogant nor sheepish. Sure of himself and un-thwarted in his interests and ambitions. Remus envied that, too. "I met her when my parents and I went to the family breakfast for Harry. But that's the thing -- Fleur hasn't met too many people yet, and I thought our lot might be the right sort for her to know, if she's to stay."

A rotten egg stench rolled past on a cloud of greenish smoke, in the midst of which Remus thought he could make out the ginger hair of--

"Dung Fletcher's exactly the right sort for your new French girlfriend to know," Tonks deadpanned.

"Oi, Dung!" Bill flicked his wand and a stream of water doused the stumpy, pungent man, extinguishing the pipe stuck between his yellow teeth. "Take a shower, will you?"

Dung's features started to arrange themselves into a scowl, but he rapidly wheeled himself around on his bandy legs as Molly chased him, waving a dishtowel to clear the lingering smoke from the air. "Mundungus Fletcher if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times not to smoke that foul thing in this house! It's horrible enough here without your smoke!"

"You should try that water trick on Severus sometime," said Remus.

Bill chuckled, but as Remus' eyes automatically sought Tonks', and he found them looking at him with silent slaughter, his heart jumped. There was that spark--

"So. You two." Bill rubbed his hands together and looked back and forth at Remus and Tonks, raising his pale strawberry blonde eyebrows expectantly at them. "Interested in a double date?"

A double date. Bill wanted them to go on a double date with him and his new girlfriend. Dinner. Dancing. Or maybe Quiz Night at the Leaky Cauldron. He_, werewolf Remus Lupin_, had received a social invitation to do the sort of fun, romantic, coupley things he'd always wanted to be part of, but had found himself outside of.

And the invitation came the day he'd broken up with his girlfriend. Or she had broken up with him. He still wasn't sure what had happened.

Swallowing painfully, he glanced down at Tonks and found her to be wearing a look depicting the same bewilderment and disappointment that jostled about inside of him so dizzyingly. And, for just a split-second, he glimpsed raw pain in her dark, welling eyes, before she turned and barrelled into him, stumbling over her feet as she amended her direction and careened for the stairs.

Remus tried to call out to her, but _Dora_ choked him; a pair of grey eyes caught his from across the room, and then Sirius, jaw set, raced after Tonks, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Blimey, Remus," Bill's face matched his hair. "I'd no idea! I'm really sorry, mate, if I had, I never would've--"

"Remus, what happened?" Molly was scurrying over to him, apparently having forgotten about Dung, whose rancid pipe smoke still drifted from some corner of the house. "And what am I supposed to do about the card party Saturday? Should I invite more people who are single? I did so very much want it to be a couples' night, for Hestia and Dedalus..."

Bill laid a hand on Remus' shoulder. He wore a sympathetic smile and had never resembled Arthur more closely than at that moment. "I'm sure you'll be able to sort whatever the problem is before then. You're a good bloke and it's obvious she fancies you quite a lot."

Remus returned the smile weakly. "I'm afraid it's rather a recurring problem."

Molly touched his other sleeve, and though she was quite a bit shorter, the way she was looking at Remus (apparently reassured by Bill that her couples' card party could go on as planned) made him feel as if he were a boy looking up to her. "Aren't they all, dear?"

_To be continued..._

* * *

_**A/N: You readers are so much appreciated, especially as most of you have read this before! If you take a moment to let me know what you think of this chapter, you'll get the opportunity to help pull Remus out of his mopey mood: you can make him breakfast (to eat in bed, of course, though Firewhisky on your cornflakes is entirely optional), or you can become his personal hairstylist, or you can help him give any male who comes within fifty feet of Tonks the hexing of a lifetime. **_


	4. Part Four

_Apologies for the glitch that caused alerts to go out for parts 4-6. This is the real part four, and the final part in this fic._

* * *

**Part Four**

Hours had passed since Tonks fled in distress from the dreary basement kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, where Bill Weasley had issued the mother of all ill-timed invitations by asking her and Remus to go on a double date with him and his new girlfriend, not realising that Remus had broken up with her that very morning. Or she'd broken up with him. Somebody had broken up with somebody, but no matter how many times Remus relived the scenario (it must be approaching upwards of a thousand by now), he still could not figure out where it had gone wrong.

In actuality, hours had _not_ passed. It only felt like hours because Remus was sat outside the drawing room, where Tonks was, according to Alastor Moody, holed up with Sirius. The green velvet curtains were drawn over the French doors, which had been made doubly secure with an Imperturbable Charm. (Remus knew because he'd shamelessly tried to use an Extendable Ear, which had failed; but a bonus of Moody's magical eye was that it allowed him to see through Imperturbed objects, and he confirmed that Tonks was, indeed, within, deep in discussion with Sirius.)

Remus wasn't sure which of two things was more responsible for his current state of discomfort. Was it because his love life rested in the hands of a man who'd once tried to convince Lily Evans of all the reasons why she was wrong about James Potter, which had resulted in the mysterious appearance of a parchment bearing the title _Ninety-Five Theses on Potter's Self-Indulgence_ on the bulletin board of the Gryffindor common room? Or was it that Mad-Eye was also staked out in the corridor, his magical eye never leaving Remus even as the other flicked about in constant alertness of their surroundings. Probably Remus ought to be more fearful of being turned into a ferret -- or worse -- as it had taken Lily six years to accumulate so many grievances against James, while Tonks had known _him_ fewer than six months; and Sirius had been forced to grow up since the _Theses_, during which interval he'd had abundant time for reflection and the cultivation of wisdom. 

Of course, Sirius had put Firewhisky on his cornflakes that morning.

It was the dead silence in the corridor that made him most uncomfortable, Remus decided. That, and wide, ornate skirting board dug into the small of his back. Also his bum was decidedly numb from sitting on the hardwood floor. Circumstance would improve greatly if only he could be sure that Mad-Eye didn't hate him second to Death Eaters for making poor Tonks look and act as she had tonight.

Remus asked, conversationally, whether Mad-Eye had Auror business to discuss with Tonks.

The magical eye seemed to narrow on him, and for a moment Remus' heart hung, as though levitated, in his chest, and he gritted his teeth in expectation of a jet of light issuing from the eye like a spell from a wand in a duel.

Of course nothing of the sort happened. Mad-Eye merely gripped his walking stick and grunted (or growled?) by way of response.

Silence seemed golden to Remus, and so three-quarters of an hour dragged by before the French doors swung open and Tonks' stepped out.

Sirius' thin white hand rested on her shoulder, and Remus drew in a sharp breath upon seeing that the delicate skin around Tonks' dark eyes was puffy and reddened. But though he ached inside to be the cause of her overwrought state, he was relieved that she was able to look him in the face, as she had not managed to do at all before now.

"Tonks," he said, getting awkwardly to his feet, stiff from sitting so long on the floor. "Can we talk? I'm afraid you've misunderstood me."

She gave him a watery smile. "That happens when you contradict yourself."

Remus opened and closed his mouth, unable to produce a sound for what had to be a full minute. 

At last he croaked out, "How...?" and then, clearing his throat, managed an entire sentence. "When have I contradicted myself?"

Patting his arm, Tonks said, "Talk to me after you've worked it out." 

She brushed past him to the staircase, and Mad-Eye followed her, his magical eye rotating in the socket to watch Remus out the back of his head.

"Only don't hurt yourself, Remus," Tonks said over her shoulder as she put her foot on the first step. "Ask Sirius to help you. It'll be like old times, doing homework."

"Homework?" Sirius snorted, still stood behind Remus. "I never did bloody homework, did I, Moony?"

Tonks rolled her eyes at her cousin, then looked once more at Remus, a softness in her expression which he couldn't quite interpret. Was she hopeful he'd have a revelation and change his mind? Or did she just think him a sad, thick sod?

"Cheers, gents," she said, her tone subdued. "Thanks again, Sirius." 

And then she looked away, watching her own feet descend the steps. 

Mad-Eye's gruff tones drifted upstairs: "Need me to turn Lupin into a ferret for you, lass?"

"I think Remus turns into quite enough things," came Tonks' reply. "That's the problem."

Remus stood looking down from the first storey landing until Tonks' and Mad-Eye's retreating forms vanished around the corner of the winding staircase and their voices were drowned out by the portrait denouncing the "AUROR BLIGHT ON THE NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK" and the "SHAPESHIFTING HALF-BLOOD FREAK SPAWN OF A BLOOD TRAITOR." Walburga was still muttering when the front door shut.

"A problem for you, she meant," said Sirius. "It's not a problem for her. Unless you make it one."

Remus turned, slowly, and saw his friend's tall, gaunt form leaning against the doorframe with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets. The posture contained all the casual, unstudied elegance of a son of the most elite and established family in Wizarding Britain, and no great amount of imagination was required to picture him as the most popular boy at Hogwarts. Yet his grey eyes were rich with the understanding of a longstanding friendship which, all jokes aside, has gained perspective from years of solitary reflection.

"She told you everything," said Remus.

Sirius' shoulder rose slightly in a shrug, his long black hair falling down back. "Dunno. She told me rather a lot. But she is female, so Merlin only knows whether it was everything, or just the really emotional bits."

Exhaling a long and heavy breath, Remus leant back against the banister, watching the fingers of his left hand pick at the chipped gilt of the serpent finial. "She cried."

Tonks cried, and it had not been his fingers that had brushed her tears away. 

"A bit," said Sirius. "She did a lot more of gnashing her teeth and punching pillows and kicking things. Put a lovely dent in Mum's old brass waste can."

Remus wasn't particularly pleased by the thought of having frustrated Tonks to committing minor acts of violence, either, but at least it was a more accurate reflecting of her colourful personality than quiet tears.

"I've never been so confused by a woman." Remus uncurled moist fingers from around the ornamental end piece of the banister, and gestured airily behind him, downstairs, in the vague direction of the front door. "Now with this business of me contradicting myself, I'm at even more a loss."

"_Think_, Moony. What set her off first?"

It was all very well for Sirius to stand there looking smug, Remus wanted to snap back, but _he_ hadn't had the benefit of a heart-to-heart chat with Tonks. He bit his tongue and turned around, peering down into the dimly lit front hall below, suddenly aware of the close, musty air that seemed to refuse to let go of Dung's pipe smoke. He couldn't think in here. He wished very much to walk outside and clear his head with a deep breath of the crisp October night air. But of course Sirius had to stay here, in the dark, and the damp, and the suffocation, so Remus thought as best as he could. Sifting through the memories and emotions of the past ten hours (so little time?) felt sluggish; it was not at all unlike the sensation of trying to fight off the control of the Imperius Curse over the mind.

At last Remus said, "She nearly went off right from the start when I made a joke about Umbridge, but she stopped herself. We went out for coffee, and for a while we were perfectly amiable--"

"_Amiable_. Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"--which you should know, as she told you everything."

"She did mention she thought everything was tickety-boo, but then you got broody and started talking bollocks about her being quiet on your date."

"I told you," said Remus tightly, his hands wrapping around the railing once more, "I didn't know what she was thinking. What do you propose I should have done, if not _ask_? Perform Legilimency of her in the coffee shop? And anyway, she did the asking first. She wanted me to tell her what was on my mind, and as what was on my mind was what was on _her_ mind--"

"Have you been drinking?" Sirius' voice lilted with the familiar sound of his amusement. "Only you're starting to sound a hell of a lot like me."

"It's your contagious personality." Remus turned sharply to his left and planted a foot on the next flight of stairs. "As well as the fact that I'm too knackered to discuss this further. Good night, Padfoot."

He began to ascend, but Sirius called up to him. 

"Why'd she stop herself going off about Umbridge? That doesn't sound like the feisty Tonks I know. Granted I don't know her half so well as you know her..."

"Who wants to think about Umbridge any more than is necessary?" Remus flung back over his shoulder. "Tonks knows I certainly don't--Oh hell."

He halted on the stairs, his hands on the rail keeping him up right as realisation struck him with the force of a Bludger pounded by a professional Beater.

"Oh bloody buggering _hell_."

Tonks knew he didn't like talking about Umbridge because it had been the subject of a previous row. Turning on the narrow step, he saw that Sirius had moved from the drawing room doorway to stand at the foot of the stairs. He peered steadily up at Remus, his expression stating clearly that it was about time Remus figured it out, though somehow without a hint of smugness; Sirius' grey eyes were all compassion.

Remus sank down on the second floor landing. Elbows on his knees, he slumped forward, pressing his forehead into the heels of his hands, fingers fisting his hair at the roots.

"I'm a damned fool." 

As expected, Sirius didn't refute the statement, though he did climb the stairs to sit beside Remus as he went on:

"She was quiet on our date because I'd told her that talking only makes it worse. She was doing what I asked. She made a conscious effort to change...for _me_..." Remus actually smiled slightly at the sweetness of it, only to taste bitterness at the sad reminder that he'd lost her. "I was so busy expecting the worst that I missed the best. In fact I made the worst happen because I imagined a recurring problem where there was none at all. Damn it! How could I have been such a fool?"

"I'm buggered if I know," said Sirius. "I assumed you were testing her."

Remus lifted his head. "Testing her?"

Sirius cocked his head to meet Remus' eye. "Zonko's not the first person who's thrown you out of his shop, is he?"

For a moment Remus met the steady grey stare, then he shook his head. He thought he saw the slightest tensing of his mate's jaw before Sirius said, "Rosmerta's not the first person from your past who thought, _'All my life I served Butterbeer to a bloody werewolf and I never knew,'_ is she? That couple in the pub weren't the first to recognise you and keep as far away as they could, were they?"

"No," said Remus, "to all of the above." An ill feeling clutched at his belly as Sirius' rather roundabout train of thought suddenly veered straight ahead, careening toward logic. "You think I knew there was a chance I'd be treated that way when I took Tonks out, and that I wanted to know how she would react."

Sirius' eyes bent guiltily, and he fidgeted on the step. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't blame you. We all test people in love, don't we?"

"I'm not sure I did it consciously. But at some level I must have done."

"Conscious test or not," said Sirius, accompanied by the creaking of the step as he stood and moved to lean against the banister, "the girl passed."

Remus smiled faintly. "With flying colours."

He, unfortunately, had crashed, probably more spectacularly than any Quidditch player had ever done. 

After a moment, Sirius asked, "What are you going to do, then?"

Remus raked his hands through his hair, tugging again because his head ached, then swept his fingers back to rub the base of his neck.

"I've no bloody idea." Sighing, he hunched onto his elbows again. "For starters I owe her one hell of an apology."

"She told me she wanted a walk home," said Sirius. "You could go after her. Tell her you made a mistake."

"It doesn't change anything. Tonks deserves to go out with someone who doesn't come with the constant risk of public humiliation." He looked up at Sirius. "Flying colours or not, the test she passed didn't include her being ridiculed and shunned for being out with a werewolf. Frankly, it's something I'd rather _not_ test, if it can be avoided. I couldn't bear to see her treated as anything less than she deserves." A single puff of ironic laughter pushed out from his throat. "This, of course, assumes she will forgive me and want to get back together. The latter I cannot conceive of."

"Why would she want you to have a think and get back to her if she didn't want that? And don't give me one of your smart-arse jokes," Sirius continued, hastily, when Remus pushed himself up from his seat on the landing, his mouth open in reply. "Torture's not her style. Her aunt's, yes, but you've nothing to fear from Tonks."

"I think I'll turn in," said Remus.

Sirius blocked his path to the next flight of stairs, stretching his arms across. 

"Padfoot--"

"I'm not finished with you, Mister Moony."

Remus folded his arms across his chest, but reasoned that since he hadn't accomplished a thing on his own today but work himself into a jolly good mope and hurt Tonks even worse than he had that morning, he needed all the help he could get. "I'm listening."

"Do you want a girlfriend or don't you?"

"Yes, of course, b--"

"If you say _but_, I'll Silence you. The D-word's out, as well."

"Damn?"

"_Deserve_. I've heard you go off about that Umbridge bitch--"

"The two words combine quite nicely into Um_bitch_."

"--telling her and her fucking legislation where they can go, and in those words, too. So I know you don't believe you deserve less than other people."

Remus had known he would live to regret that first night he'd stayed in Grimmauld Place with Sirius, when the Firewhisky and his words had flowed too freely. Despite the fact that Remus harboured the same sentiment now, perhaps with an even stronger conviction in light of the happiness that had tantalised him in the pink-haired form of Nymphadora Tonks, he commanded himself to maintain the cool head he had not that night in June, which had enabled Sirius to use his own words against him.

"I appreciate it, Sirius, really I do, but this isn't about what I believe. It's about the way things _are_."

"Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe it's _not_ the way things are? That maybe because someone like Tonks thinks well of you, other people will begin to look past the werewolf thing as well?"

Tempting as it was to let himself look at the problem from this angle, and let himself slip into the belief that it wasn't a problem at all, experience had taught Remus that he could not delude himself again. For a while it might be wonderful, but reality always reared its ugly head. For Tonks' life, he wanted nothing but beauty.

"Dumbledore's good opinion of me didn't count for much, did it?"

"I think more of Tonks' opinion than Dumbledore's."

As Remus un-crossed his arms, his fingers curled tightly into fists. He felt control slipping away almost as if the moon had waxed full. Digging his nails into his palms, he pressed his hands to his sides and spoke through clenched teeth. "I know you don't mean that."

"Don't I?"

The defiance in those steely eyes took Remus back in time to a scene very like this -- right down to taking place on the staircase leading up to the boys' dormitory -- when Remus had been trying to talk Sirius out of running away from home as he planned when the Hogwarts Express delivered them to London. They might have traded the same words then, just as Remus had also seen behind Sirius' bravado a raw pain, deep confusion, and fear he would rather die than admit to, and which to mention would have shamed him.

Remus' temper left him as he let out his breath, though not a muscle in his body relaxed. "Let's disembark that train of thought before we both say something we regret, shall we?"

Sirius looked away and, with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders, turned to mount the stairs to the third story. Remus followed close behind, though his body that hadn't had proper sleep in nearly two weeks protested the rapid movement.

"You may have a point about Tonks' reputation proving advantageous to mine," he said, "but you must understand my reluctance to take that risk. You know better than anyone what it is to desire to protect the people you care about from the parts of yourself you cannot escape."

Sirius stopped so suddenly on the landing that Remus nearly collided into his back. Head falling forward, long black hair hiding his profile, Sirius' hunched posture became very rigid as he gripped the banister with one hand and the handrail on the wall with the other; his knuckles turned white under the flickering light from the sconce above. Remus pleaded silently in tempo with his pounding heart that he hadn't gone too far. Sirius hadn't talked about Rosmerta in fifteen years. Had his heart forgotten the ache of her? Or was the wound raw?

His voice sounded very much the latter when he said, "I should go and feed Buckbeak," and, without a glance at Remus, continued straight ahead from the landing rather than turning up the final flight of stairs that lead to his and Remus' bedrooms.

"Please, Padfoot," called Remus, going up after him. "Don't shut yourself up like this. It's bad enough I mucked things up with Tonks. I don't want to row with you as well."

Hand on the doorknob, Sirius peered out of the shadows. The wan light of the lamps on the landing threw into relief his sharp features, casting shadows into the gaunt hollows of his cheeks. The eyes that stared out of the face gleamed silver, but didn't look directly at Remus, so his expression remained unreadable, and when Sirius spoke, Remus thought the thickest prison walls might have been between them.

"You know I've wondered whether James wasn't right."

Remus hesitated to reply, flicking back through the past several minutes to recall which thread of conversation Sirius had picked up, although this might be a non sequitur. James had said so many things, and been right about most of them.

Unlike himself. 

"James might have been right about Rosmerta?" he ventured. 

Sirius _hmm_ed and shoved a hand into his pocket. "That I should've let her decide about our relationship and all that. Although I suppose it worked out for the best, anyway. It might've been her husband who sold his friends and murdered twelve Muggles and was sentenced to Azkaban for life."

Before Remus could reply, Sirius turned the doorknob and ducked into the dark master bedroom in a single swift movement. As if there was any reply to such a statement, made by a man who was prisoner to a heart and mind more impenetrable than Azkaban. Remus felt a heavy coldness to the tips of his fingers as he wondered whether Sirius would ever be free of the shackles of misplaced trust in Peter, and guilt that couldn't' run deeper if he _had_ betrayed the Potters and killed all those people. Even if he got out of Grimmauld Place, got to be the godfather he wanted to be to Harry, would his life sentence ever be repealed?

Wearily, he placed his foot on the last set of steps to go up to bed, but stopped again when Sirius' voice drifted up to him. 

"I don't know what to tell you, Moony."

Remus turned back, wanting to tell Sirius, who he couldn't see in the darkness, that he didn't need to tell him anything, because this whole thing was so stupid, so insignificant, but his throat was so tight that words failed him utterly.

Sirius went on, "Just...if you're ever going to get the balls to expect the best from someone, I think it ought to be Tonks. Sleep on it, okay?"

Remus nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Padfoot."

"Night."

Climbing the final flight of stairs to his bedroom -- Regulus' old room, hung all in Slytherin green with newspaper clippings about Voldemort and the Death Eaters affixed to the walls with permanent sticking charms -- Remus expected, in spite of the fatigue that went all the way to the depths of his bones, to lie awake all night, mulling over Sirius' troubles, and all Sirius had advised about his own. However, he fell asleep almost the instant his head touched the feather pillow.

When he woke the next morning, he knew what to do.

* * *

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," a serene female voice filled the dilapidated telephone box in which Remus stood. "Please state your name and business."

He hesitated, and then, glimpsing the distorted figure of a wizard in a rubber rain cloak battling an umbrella that threatened to blow out on him in the strong and chilly October wind through the rain-streaked glass panes of the phone box, Remus cleared his throat and stated, "Remus Lupin, here to bring a gift to..."

He swallowed. He'd nearly said _my girlfriend_, but Tonks was not his girlfriend anymore. But he could _not_ bring himself to refer to her as his ex-girlfriend, and even _friend_ didn't go far enough to express what she meant to him. So he said, though he wasn't sure why an accurate description mattered to an enchanted voice, "To a young lady in the Auror office who I hope will forgive me for being a fool and be my girlfriend again. Nymphadora Tonks."

"Thank you," said the cool voice. "Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes."

A series of clicks and clanks from within the telephone apparatus momentarily produced a square silver badge etched with the gleaming words _Remus Lupin, Werewolf, Auror Headquarters._

Feeling slightly breathless, he picked it up with trembling fingers, scuffing his thumb across the smooth metallic badge. Was it just his imagination, or was _werewolf_ a little larger, a little brighter, than the rest of the text? He'd avoided the Ministry since the public nature of his resignation from Hogwarts had forced him to register with the Werewolf Registry, but well he recalled the shame burning in his chest as he'd pinned the badge that read simply _Remus Lupin, Werewolf Registry_ to the breast pocket of his suit, chosen to make the best human impression he could on such an occasion -- the best _unremarkable_ human impression, that was; he'd dressed in the hope that no one would look too closely at the grey-haired man of average height wearing the nondescript grey suit, and therefore would not notice his destination or recognise him from the photographs in the _Daily Prophet_ as the werewolf teacher who'd been much too close to their children for the past year. 

At least then there had been the chance that someone might think he _worked_ for the Werewolf Registry. Now he was, undoubtedly, a werewolf, and it made him feel decidedly sick to his stomach, as well as a touch feverish. The tissue paper-wrapped lump in his pocket felt heavy enough to strain the seams of the old garment, and yet he knew it was grossly inadequate for the feelings he wished it to express. Even if Tonks appreciated the thought behind his poor offering, and wasn't ashamed to have calls paid on her by a man whose status as a werewolf was printed for all to see, she might be upset by the badge itself, and the discrimination it stood for, which she herself had declared a humiliation.

"Oi!" A muffled voice from behind the phone box drew Remus' attention outside again, just in time to see a large hand ball into a fist and rap on the door. "Put on the bloody badge and stop 'oldin' up the line, alrigh'?"

Remus waved his hand in apology and pinned the badge to his black cloak. He couldn't not; and wearing a badge was such a little thing in comparison to how he'd hurt Tonks.

But he nonetheless stared down at the nametag, so shiny against the faded fabric of his cloak, sure that _werewolf_ was, indeed, the most noticeable word and would be obvious from a distance. He was so intent on imagining himself walking through the Atrium as other visitors and Ministry employees shrank back from him in fear and revulsion, that he hardly heard the voice in the phone box instructing him to present his wand at the security desk for registration, the grinding noise as the telephone box lurched and proceeded downward into the Ministry, until a glaring light rose suddenly up from the floor. As he blinked against it, the images he'd conjured in his mind's eye faded, and he heard the placid female voice, on behalf of the Ministry of Magic, bid him a pleasant day, which both surprised and buoyed him; his thoughts had been dark enough that even an enchanted voice shouldn't have afforded a known werewolf any particular courtesy.

And, thankfully, the Ministry Atrium on a Friday afternoon was too bustling a place for anyone to give an unremarkable man in a plain black travelling cloak a first glance, much less a second. An elderly witch came out of one of the many Floos and slipped in a puddle that had dripped off a visitor's umbrella. She skidded into Remus, who caught her round the waist and kept her upright, but didn't really look at him as she apologised and thanked him for breaking her collision course. Remus made it all the way to the security desk without further incident.

There, the scruffy blue-robed wizard who was working the _Daily Prophet_ crossword and whose nametag read _Eric_ only raised an eyebrow at Remus' visitor's badge as he waved a Probity Probe over Remus' front and back. 

"You don't look like a werewolf," he commented. 

Remus thanked him and handed over his wand for inspection. 

"But what's a werewolf got to do in the Auror division?" Eric asked as he placed Remus' wand in the Wand Weigher. "I never saw one go anywhere but the Registry or Support Services."

"A woman," Remus replied. 

Eric's mouth fell open as the Wand Weigher vibrated and buzzed on the security desk. When it spat out a slip of parchment, Eric closed his mouth and shook himself.

"Well, to each her own," he said. "Reckon Aurors find us ordinary blokes right bores for their sense of adventure and danger." Picking up the parchment produced by the Wand Weigher, he looked Remus over again. "But once again you hardly look like a dangerous adventure."

"And once again, I thank you," said Remus as civilly as he could manage, though he was beginning to feel a little annoyed at this fellow's tweaks at his virility.

As Eric read the Wand Weigher's assessment, Remus looked surreptitiously under the edge of the security desk and was pleased to see a bluebell-coloured lump stuck there. Without a doubt, a wad of Drooble's Best Blowing gum. Looked fairly fresh, too.

"Ten and a half inches, ash..." Eric's voice pitched higher, squeaking like an adolescent's. "W-wolf hair core? Been in use twenty-four years. That correct?"

"Yes. Now do you believe I'm a werewolf?"

Eric thrust the wand back at Remus as if afraid it would curse him of its own accord. If only he knew what awaited him. 

"Thank you, Eric," said Remus. "Have a nice weekend." He pretended to tuck his wand into his cloak as he turned away, but gave it the slightest of flicks and muttered, "_Waddiwasi._" 

"_Ow_!" cried Eric a second later. "What the bloody..._Gum_?" 

Remus longed to see the confusion on Eric's scruffy face as he mined for the wad of Drooble's Best up his nostril, but was contented to listen to the struggle and the laughter of others as he sniggered to himself all the way to the lifts.

Not wanting to press his luck with the telling name badge, Remus slipped into an empty lift as the grille was closing, and rode in solitude down to level two. He stepped out into the corridor as the same female voice as from the telephone box announced, "Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration services," which made him realise he didn't actually know where Auror Headquarters were located. Luckily, he ran into Arthur coming out of one of the many doors lining the corridor, though of course he had to pretend he didn't know him when he asked for directions.

"Just round the corner," said Arthur helpfully, gesturing with a shoulder as his arms were full of file folders (intelligence for the Order?). "Through the pair of big oak doors. There'll be a sign."

Remus thanked him and moved in the direction Arthur had indicated, feeling awkward at not being able to make small talk, or offer a proper goodbye. He wished he had a cover for knowing him -- his for Tonks was that he was a friend of Mad-Eye's and had met her at a gathering.

But Arthur called, "You're that Defence teacher, aren't you? Professor Lupin?"

"Just Remus." 

He turned back to shake Arthur's hand, and noticed a gleam not unlike the one that came into the twins' eyes when they were circumventing the rules.

"Arthur Weasley. My kids liked you a lot. My wife and I would love to have you around for tea sometime."

"I'd like that," said Remus. "Thank you, Arthur. Please give Mrs. Weasley my regards."

"I will. And good luck with the Aurors."

"Why, do I need it?" Remus joked, though his heart had sped up, quickening as he made his way down the corridor to the Auror office.

He was holding his breath by the time he reached the double doors Arthur had described, though he let it out in a grunt as he leaned into the heavy oak to push them open. And then he couldn't be nervous because he was too busy being startled by a woman's Irish brogue:

"Look alive there, lad!"

Remus just saw the point of a violet paper aeroplane aimed straight for his eye when a pair of feminine hands shoved him out of the line of fire. Already off-balance from opening the door, Remus fell.

"Mother of Merlin, I'm sorry!" said the Irish woman, offering him a hand up. 

Remus accepted it and was pulled to his feet by a red-robed witch wearing a patch over her left eye, which she gestured to with her free hand.

"But sure you should be glad to have bruised your bum and not had one of your lovely blue eyes gouged out! Auror department memos are lethal bastards."

She paused, and Remus wondered whether she were waiting for him to express sympathy for the loss of her eye. Trouble was, he was hung up on the question of whether a person really could lose an eye to a paper aeroplane. Although, he'd certainly feared for his when he'd seen it coming at him.

The witch cackled and clapped his shoulder. 

"Merlin love you! I should hope I had a better story than a paper aeroplane in exchange for my eye!" She laughed for a moment, then wiped a tear from the corner of her right eye. "And I do. Took a Gougin' Spell last summer chasin' a baddie. Arsehole got himself an additional ten years in Azkaban for assaultin' an Auror. I'll be gettin' a proper magical eye like Alastor Moody's once I've finished the treatment regimen at St. Mungo's. And here I am yammerin' your ear off, while you aren't havin' the foggiest who I am! I'm Eileen. Eileen O'Sullivan."

She pumped his hand, which she still grasped, vigorously. Remus expected her to drop it like a cursed object as her eyes dropped to his visitor's badge.

She did look up at him in astonishment and say, "Merlin and Morgana! You're Remus Lupin? _Tonks'_ Remus Lupin? The travellin' one?" but she kept hold of his hand. 

He nodded. 

"Well I'm just thrilled to meet you at last! And Tonks'll be thrilled to see you, that's for sure and certain."

"Only she's not here," came a booming voice, and the broad frame of Kingsley Shacklebolt was suddenly visible over the top of a nearby cubicle. "Lupin."

Remus swallowed and nodded in greeting. He sensed that though he and Kingsley also had to hide their degree of acquaintance, Kingsley's stiffness now was genuine in regard to Tonks. But at least the _entire_ Auror squad didn't seem aware that, as Sirius had put it, all was not fair in love and war. That Tonks hadn't seen fit to let the world know how badly she'd been treated by her loser of an ex-boyfriend gave him some hope that he could mend things with her.

"I have something for her," said Remus, drawing the pink tissue-wrapped bundle and a card from his cloak. "Could I leave these on her desk?"

"'Course, darlin', and I'll show you where it is!" chirped Eileen, tugging him toward the end of the first row of cubicles. 

"No guarantee she'll be back in today," said Kingsley, watching Remus being pulled along by O'Sullivan. 

Rufus Scrimgeour's recruitment strategy, Remus decided, must be to only accept women onto the Auror squad who were impossible to say no to. (And who were rather rough and tumble, the hip he'd landed on when she knocked him out the way of the paper aeroplane prompted him to add.) Really, he didn't know why he'd thought he could get away with breaking up with Tonks. That was, if she hadn't been the one who'd done the breaking up.

"Here we are," said Eileen as they rounded a corner and stepped into an aisle between rows of cubicles. "Though you probably coulda guessed from all the Weird Sisters paraphernalia about. Me, I like the Hobgoblins, which has nearly driven Tonks and me to duellin' on more than one occasion. But I won't disturb you if you want to write her a note. Lovely to meet you, Remus Lupin!"

And then Eileen was gone, and, except for an Auror with wiry grey hair one cubicle over leaning back in his chair to pop his head around the divider to see who had business with Tonks, Remus found himself alone in her cubicle. His disappointment at her absence ached more acutely than any emotion he'd felt since he set foot in the telephone box outside the Ministry.

He started to lay his card and gift on her desk, but hesitated when a paper aeroplane soared over the top of the cubicle, did a loop-the-loop, and then alit on the mass of clutter. How many of these messages had come in since Tonks left the office? Would his note be swallowed up in a sea of memos? Would she even sort through them, or simply sweep the lot off into the dustbin without reading? Even if she did find it, was this sort of apology better made in person?

Shaking his head against the thoughts -- the excuses -- he'd already considered and argued against a million times before he'd got out of bed at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, he stood the pink tissue paper-wrapped gift against a dusty framed photograph at the corner of the desk of a plump blond man with Tonks' dark eyes and a brown-haired woman who, at first glance, looked alarmingly like Bellatrix Lestrange. He leant his card against the present, and cast a charm over both that would keep them from being buried by incoming paperwork. Tonks would read his written apology -- written in part to make up for not having written to her during his ten days away -- and then he would speak to her. His plan stood whether he handed her the card in person or she found it like this.

In the Atrium, Eric waved Remus over to the security desk. Remus hesitated, wondering if Eric could have sussed that he was responsible for the gum up his nose, but then Eric called, "Oi! How'd id go wid your Auror, den?"

Somehow in the midst of laughing to himself that Eric hadn't got all the gum out of his nose, Remus considered his answer. 

"I think it's going to be okay," he said, and meant it. 

He would have preferred to have seen her, but as he handed over his visitor's badge, he felt better than he had in the day that had passed since his row with Tonks, and indeed, in all the time since their Hogsmeade date.

And as he gave the badge one last glance, he decided that _werewolf_ was no more prominent than any other word on the silver name plate.

* * *

Remus would have been lying if, when an entire day, plus a few hours, passed without word from Tonks, he'd said that he felt just as _okay_ about the fate of his relationship with Tonks as when he said it to Eric the security wizard. His confidence had, indeed, wavered slightly -- but not to the extent that he sat in Grimmauld Place growing old and grim moping about it. His resolve that it was up to him to make things right with Tonks remained unshaken by time and silence. Saturday evening found him on the doorstep of her London flat, dressed in his best.

He'd found a midnight blue jumper in at the bottom of his bureau, forgotten because the elbows needed darning. It was a good colour on him, he thought, and most importantly, Tonks hadn't seen him in it before. It had mended tolerably, and rolled-up sleeves covered a multitude of fashion sins, he'd learnt. With his white shirt underneath and pressed brown trousers, he looked presentable for a night with friends. He hadn't shaved, because Tonks liked him scruffy, but he thought he looked like he'd made an effort for her. His heavily patched travelling cloak did considerably less for the overall look, but it had been too cold to go without. Hopefully the pink chrysanthemum bouquet he'd spontaneously picked up for her at the market when he stopped for a bottle of red wine (now _Reduced_ and residing in one of the deep pockets of the cloak) would distract from his shabby outerwear. 

Not that he was here to indulge his vanity, even if Sirius would say Remus' vanity could do with a little indulgence. Or a lot of indulgence. Whatever he could do with, this was about Tonks.

And _them_. 

He very much hoped there was still a them. 

Remus drew a deep breath, then let it out, slowly, to steady his wild pulse. He raised his hand, which he was relieved to see had stopped shaking, and poised to rap on the door marked _#115_ in bright brass numerals. 

At the groaning sound of pipes from within the wall, his hand paused mid-knock; he very nearly beat his head against the door instead. He'd been very patient about missing Tonks at work, and even more so about her not getting in touch with him, because he knew the Quaffle was still at his end of the Quidditch pitch. Now that he'd drawn from the deep well of his Gryffindor courage and come here, if he lost another chance to speak to her because she was in the bloody _shower_--

The unmistakable shrill of bagpipes blasted through the wall, making him jump as drums and rhythm guitar thumped along in counterpart to the pipes, now joined by the lead guitar. Leaning toward the door, Remus was almost sure he could pick out a high female voice singing along with Myron Wagtail, and, the momentary irritation falling away, he grinned. He wasn't exactly a Weird Sisters buff, but he'd lay a few Sickles (as short as he was) on their not having any female band members. So the sound of pipes must have been the shower shutting _off_, and now Tonks was singing along to her wireless. Excellent. He would be speaking to her very shortly. 

That was, as soon as he cleared his mind of the image of Tonks, just out of the shower, translucent beads of water dripping from wet pink hair and rolling over the milky white curves of her body, dancing.

It was no easy task while he was able to hear her piping voice, and occasionally her stumbling, through the thin apartment wall. Eventually he managed it by remembering how she'd looked two days ago at the Order meeting, so pale against her oddly coloured, tired looking ponytail, unable to meet his eye and drained of her usual vivacity and laughter. His fingers slackened around the flowers that her lack of response to his note might mean she still had no desire to see him. Perhaps he ought to forget all about this and leave her be...

_No._ He shook his head. Even if it did mean that, he still had to face her. And anyway, dancing (naked) about one's flat generally didn't indicate depression, did it?

Tightening his grip on the chrysanthemum bouquet, the plastic wrap crinkling in his grasp, he rapped the knuckles of his free hand on the door.

There was a second of blaring rock and roll during which Remus wondered if he ought to knock again, with a Sonorus Spell, when Tonks shouted, "Hang on, I'm coming!" The Weird Sisters went silent, and then in place of the drums her feet were pounding through the flat at an irregular, clumsy tempo. There was a _thunk_, and then a curse; just as Remus was wondering what she'd had knocked over this time, or whether something had knocked _her_ over, the door swung open and he found himself stood face to face with Tonks, her chest heaving beneath a knee-length black silk dressing gown with a gigantic magenta floral print that was sliding off one shoulder. And either her bra strap was falling down, as well, or Tonks wasn't wearing a bra.

Remus swallowed. 

Apparently his gaze had dropped downward, to the opening of the dressing gown, held closed around her by only a loosely tied sash at her slender waist, as Tonks' hand suddenly shot up to pull it up over her shoulder and across her cleavage. He looked up, took in short, tousled brown hair that must have been towel dried, and a heart-shaped face glowing from her recent shower. She wore no makeup, but her lips were very red. God, she'd never looked more beautiful to him, and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her soundly.

But, for the moment, all his lips did was smile, nervously, and say, "Hello, Tonks."

"Wotcher," said Tonks, and then she said nothing else, but merely stood there, her expression unreadable, except that it was undeniably expectant of an explanation for his appearance.

"I'm sorry," said Remus, "I should've Flooed first. Are you going somewhere?"

An eyebrow rose on Tonks' forehead as if this were a very stupid question. "Arthur and Molly's."

"Ah. You're still going, then?"

The corner of Tonks' mouth hitched upward in something like amusement as she nodded. 

Remus knew he was being very thick, but he couldn't help himself. His mouth and throat had gone very dry; all the moisture, he thought, had gone to his hands, which were sweating profusely. He wiped the palm of his free hand on his cloak and hoped Tonks didn't notice.

"Me, too," he said. "In fact I hoped we could go together."

Whether this pleased Tonks or not, her face provided no clue. Which made him feel all the more foolish for having accused her of difficulty in concealing her emotions. She'd made her point.

"Go together," Tonks repeated. "As in, fly together? Or Floo together? Or Side-along Apparate? Or are you even talking about modes of transportation?"

"No. Go together, as in Remus Lupin, werewolf, and Nymphadora Tonks, Auror, Metamorphmagus, and simply amazing witch, a couple. Together. Again."

His heart hung in his chest, not beating, and still Tonks neither spoke nor moved beyond the faintest upward curve of her lips, and a quick blink that, he thought, softened her eyes.

He stepped closer to her. "Tonks..." 

No, that wasn't right. He offered her the bouquet, and she accepted it, drawing the bright blossoms to her nose, but not dropping her gaze from his.

"Dora..." 

He couldn't resist raising his hand to brush the backs of his fingers across her smooth cheek; she shivered at his touch, but didn't flinch away, and he indulged himself in raking his fingers back into her damp hair. She smelt like raspberries.

"I've been such an idiot," he said. 

"Fool," Tonks said. "You said fool in your letter."

Oddly the word didn't cut him. "You did get it, then."

"And that Herman Wittingham bobbing head doll." Tonks' small smile stretched across her face as a full grin that made Remus think outside, the sunlight must have pierced the thick autumn clouds. "Where on earth did you find him?"

"The bargain bin at Gambol and Japes. The lute works, did you see?"

"It's brilliant," Tonks told him, laughing. "And comes with the added bonus of annoying the hell out of Dawlish."

Remus chuckled, but as he continued to let Tonks' hair slide through his fingers, he became serious. "It's naff, I know, and certainly doesn't make up for what a _fool_ I've been...But I hoped it would make you laugh and maybe...forgive me. At least a little bit."

Her smile softened, and her hand covered his cupping her face and pressed his palm against her cheek. "It did, and I do forgive you. A hell of a lot more than a little bit."

He leaned in to her, but rested his forehead against hers instead of kissing her because he remembered she had not yet told him what she thought in regard to the future of their relationship.

"Thank you," he murmured. "And...us?"

"I want an us." Tonks stroked the back of his hand, and her dark eyes looked deeply into his. "But I've got to know what you want of me, Remus."

"Just you," he said. "Just as you are." 

He hoped she knew that he meant beautiful, and wonderful, and _remarkable_, and he nearly told her, when the hair between his fingers turned deep pink. Approximately the shade of her smiling lips. It rendered him momentarily quite speechless, and so he brought his other hand up, stroking his thumb lightly over her full lower lip, which distracted him from that particular train of thought.

"Do you know," he said, hoarsely, "it's been thirteen days since I kissed you?"

"One of the more foolish things you've done."

"I concur..." 

His lips had just begun to melt into hers when something between them crunched. 

"Oh, my flowers!" Tonks cried out, pulling back from him. "I never thanked you for them. I love mums."

"Kissing is thanks enough."

Laughing, Tonks pecked him on the lips, then grabbed his hand and pulled him into the flat. "I'll kiss you thanks as soon as I get these in water. And anyway," she added, pushing the door shut behind them as Remus shrugged out of his cloak, "I don't know about you, but I think after thirteen days without kissing, we need rather more privacy than the hall..."

Her arms had gone around his neck as she spoke, and as they kissed again, the bouquet slipped from her hands and fell to the floor with another crinkle of paper.

Before Tonks could move away again, Remus said softly against her mouth, "Bugger the flowers. They'll keep." 

Tonks giggled, but didn't stop kissing him. She buried her fingers in his hair, which he wished Molly had left long enough for Tonks to fist as he'd got used to. But as her lips opened and closed eagerly against his, and her tongue traced the inner edge of his lip and then slid alongside his tongue, it rather distracted him from what was or wasn't going on with his hair.

They were standing in the little tiled entryway of the flat, but it wasn't long before Remus felt that the position didn't allow him to pull her nearly as close against him as he would like. Her face was cupped in his hands, but now one hand slid down the sleeve of her silk dressing gown, skirting her hip before slipping round her slender waist to settle at the small of her back; the other dallied at her neck, fingers skimming beneath the gown to stroke the warm skin of her collarbone.

Holding Tonks firmly against him, he took steps backward until he met with the arm of the sofa, then side-stepped, so he could sink down onto the squashy cushions, pulling her into his lap.

Her gasp broke the kiss, and, opening his eyes in alarm at whatever misstep he'd made, he saw that in the process of relocating to the sofa, his hand had caused her sleeve to fall completely down her arm, exposing one small, round breast and answering his earlier unvoiced question about her bra.

"I'm so sorry, Dora! I solemnly swear, I'd no intention of tearing your clothes off you."

Remus lifted the fabric to cover her, but rather undermined the gallant effort with an inability to lift his gaze from the pale mound with its hardened pink nipple. Good God, his fingers had never twitched more to touch something, though of course he must not.

But what was this? _Her_ fingers wrapping around his hand, loosening her sleeve from his grasp, drawing his hand up to -- _dear Merlin_ -- rest on her breast. She wanted him to touch her. 

And touch her he did, covering her mouth once again with his as he shifted to lay her back on the sofa and straddle her. He leaned over her, her breasts filling his hands, his thumbs stroking her nipples as they kissed. He'd never known what it felt to touch a woman like this, not only physically, but also in his heart to feel that she welcomed this intimacy from him, made the most delightful sighs and moans in response to his fingers.

His own low sounds mingled with hers when he felt her hand slip under the back of his jumper. When she tugged his shirttail out from his trousers so she could run her fingers up his back, he realised that he was still not close enough to her. Her bare skin was heaven cupped in the palms of his hands, but he wanted to feel her against all of him. He broke their kiss, and withdrew his hands from her just long enough to sit up and tug his jumper off.

Hand on the top button of his shirt, he paused and looked at Tonks, stretched out beneath him. The dressing gown was crumpled around her waist, and her skin, though flushed, was so beautifully fair against the red cushions of the sofa. If Remus never did anything again but look at her, he would be a happy man. But Tonks, apparently, wanted him to be doing more than looking, or wanted to do a bit of looking herself, because she sat up slightly and unfastened his button herself. She grinned and then sat even more upright to press a kiss to the hollow of his throat as she continued unbuttoning him. When her tongue darted out to taste his skin, he groaned, and instinctively dipped his head to kiss her neck in response.

He kissed a downward trail, lingering in the hollows of her collarbone. His stubble made a small scratching sound against the top of her breast. He pushed her down onto the sofa again to make her breasts more accessible to his lips.

But just as he nuzzled the gentle valley between them, before he could taste her, he felt the heave of her chest beneath him. He became aware of his own ragged breaths, and amid them and the surge of blood in his ears, he heard the frantic beating of her heart, which rather alarmed him until he realised his own must be beating twice as fast. She was pushing his open shirt off his shoulders, but he sat back before she could divest him of the garment.

"This is..."

His voice was husky, and he drew a deep breath, realising as air rushed into his lungs that he hadn't really breathed since she opened the door to him. All his hopes of a relationship with any woman (because if he could not make this work with her, he couldn't conceive of any other being up to the task), though especially with Tonks, had rested on his not mucking up this crucial confrontation. And he was such a relief to know that he had not lost her, that after thirteen long days -- the last two eternal -- they could kiss like that, that he had touched her like that...

"it's amazing, being with you like this, Dora," he said, not precisely feeling more composed, "but I think, in light of current events, we're getting a little ahead of ourselves."

Tonks' forehead dimpled in flattering disappointment, and Remus, nearly wavering, thinking of how Sirius would say that there was no such thing as getting ahead of oneself when one had been seeing a girl for as long as Remus had been seeing Tonks. Most probably he would have something to say about make-up sex, as well. While Remus, though a novice, thought make-up sex probably did have its merits, it hardly seemed right that the first time ought to occur under such circumstances.

"I think..." He pulled Tonks to sit up beside him on the sofa, and drew her dressing gown over her lovely figure (not without a parting glance at the pair of breasts he was sure he would be imagining all the time now). Tucking one leg under him, he turned so that he could look her in the eye, and took her hands. "...we have some trust to rebuild."

Meeting his gaze steadily, Tonks nodded. "I trust you, Remus. But I wonder if you trust me. I know I'm young, and I know I've got a fair bit to learn, but you seem to think I'm going to do something stupid, and that's not fair."

"No," said Remus heavily. "It's not fair. You're an Auror, and one of the most capable I've known, at that. I met your colleague Eileen, by the way."

Tonks sat up, her eyes aglow, and squeezed his hands. "Did you, really?"

"I did," he said, his chest swelling a little at the obvious truth that Tonks wanted her friends to know him, as well as with another rush of gratitude for the grace with which she'd handled this. "She said she was thrilled to meet me. After she tackled me to save me from a departmental memo. If we'd got a bit further with the undressing, I could have showed you quite an impressive bruise on my hip."

"I could've kissed it better, too."

Remus let his head fall back against the sofa cushions and groaned. "Curse my lack of foresight. Divination was my second worst subject, you know."

Becoming serious again, he released one of her hands to stroke her cheek. "If you really believe I..._we_...won't..." 

He paused. He'd been about to repeat what he'd said to Sirius, about his reputation damaging hers, but for some reason, either his pride would not allow him to voice the fear to her, or he'd taken Sirius' reasoning to heart, and thought there was a chance she might reflect well upon him, but he couldn't say it to her now. There was only one thing that mattered in this moment.

"I trust you," he said, and leaned in to kiss her softly on the lips. 

Tonks' hands came up to touch Remus' face as they kissed, and she slid her fingers into his hair as it deepened. If they were in any danger of growing hot and heavy again, they were denied the chance to find out by a fire cracking to life in the fireplace.

Breaking apart, they turned to see in the green flames across the tiny living room, the face of Molly Weasley gawping up at them from the grate. Though Remus' face was hot, he couldn't help but see the comedy in her bulging eyes as they darted from his unbuttoned shirt and midnight blue jumper slung over the arm over the sofa, to Tonks curled up next to him, in her dressing gown, her fingers tangled in his hair.

"Well," Molly said after a moment, smiling and apparently unruffled to have interrupted what she thought she'd interrupted. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I was just popping in to see if Tonks had got tied up with work and needed me to delay dinner. But I see I need to delay it for another reason altogether!"

Remus and Tonks both started to protest, but Molly shushed them. 

"You two take your time making up. Everyone will understand." Her head bent to go, but then she glance back at them, looking alarmingly like Fred and George. "I'm glad I kept it a couples' party after all!"

And then, as suddenly as she had appeared, she was gone again. Remus and Tonks looked at each other; her face was as red as his felt, but while _he_ burst out chuckling, her head lolled against his shoulder. 

"Shall I have a little private chat with Molly to set her straight?" she asked. 

"If it's all the same to you, I've no problem with everyone thinking we did rather more than _kiss_ and make up," said Remus. "After all, it's true..." 

Tonks looked up at him, her flush deepening but her eyes bright and telling him that it was from the heat of the memory, not regret for it. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her temple. "And anyway, it'll shut Sirius up asking me every time I come home from a date with you if we've done it yet."

Nestling against his chest, Tonks brought one of Remus' hands to her lips, then tilted her head back to look up at him. "I don't care if everyone thinks I'm the luckiest girl in the Order."

Remus was sure his grin resembled a Cheshire cat's, but _he_ didn't care. "Shall we kiss for say, another quarter of an hour, then?"

Tonks snatched a cushion from the end of the sofa and whacked him in the face with it, then disengaged herself from his embrace.

"Seven minutes of heaven ought to suffice," she said, giving him a dangerously flirtatious glance over her shoulder. Dangerous in the sense that she stumbled over an unseen pair of boots in the path to her bedroom. "I've got to get dressed for this little card party. You're welcome to come and watch, if you like."

Remus did like. 

And when they stepped out of the Floo at the Burrow, laughing and happy to have the excuse of dusting soot off each other to indulge their inability to keep their hands off, no one, Remus noted happily, seemed in any doubt of their togetherness, and everyone seemed very happy to see them in that state, with no trace of a problem ever having existed between them.

_The End_

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_**A/N: Once again, I can't think you all enough for reading; and if you let me know what you think of this new R-rated ending, Remus promises to spend a few R-rated minutes alone with you. Or, if you'd rather not contend with a jealous Auror, Remus could arrange for a few R-rated minutes with Sirius, who's unlikely to let things like trust issues put an early stop to things...;)**_


End file.
